I'm thankful for this thanksgiving weekend.
It gave me a chance to catch my breath and recharge, as I'm going back to the Gaza Strip tomorrow (aka 'the office').
All this free time has also gives me the chance to put things into perspective. That life is trip, and it's about the journey - not just the destination. (This applied to my other problem areas in life too, because I'm convoluted and troublesome).
And, Carpe Diem! is my new thing, inspired by Samantha in Sex and the City who's always smiling because 'worry face expressions' will leave wrinkles. Now, it is bad enough that at this age (hahaha... I just said 'at this age' as if I'm one-hundred-and-four) I don't have a beauty regime because I don't have the patient & enough will to do it. But to undo worry expressions, I might be able to pull it off.
So, I'll let you know in a few days.

The Real War Crimes

If you can't click to the clip, click here.

This is a short clip of some US soldiers waving a bottle of water to a bunch of thirsty Iraqi children.

There's a lot of things that I want to say about this. But every time I typed down some sentences and I ended erasing them. This appaling, disgusting and inhumane. What arrogant bastards.
In twenty years or so, they'll going to tell people that they had fought for their country and brag about how much they suffered.
Yeah... right.

A cry from a bottom feeder

My deadline is approaching and I almost die out of stress.
I don't like my workplace anymore. Let alone the project, because it is actually the highlight of my daily routine now, even though I'm not done and as the result I'm doing extra hour work on the weekend and evening.
Lame life.
I know.
A person told me, that with jobs, comes the politics. It is a package and you can't avoid it.
But, I sure want to bitch slap everyone in the office who makes our lives (that're already hard as it is for us, the bottom feeders) even harder.
And I have the philosophy not to bring work to home which I always I try to abide. Now, what I meant is not to refuse doing extra work at home, which is fine, because that is part of the responsibility. But to go home with extra baggage about non-work-related issues that had happened in the office.
That I don't like.
But, I guess there's nothing I can do about things that are out of my control.
To add to that, I know some confidential news from my old boss who's now is up and above in his career ladder which will actually be quite disheartening for some of my coworkers, but will benefit me.
Man.. 2007 will be a hell year, because even if this upcoming event benefits me, I'm sure more politics, issues, bickering, and even more politics will come our way. And as if the s*** that had hit the fan is not enough, I'd imagine that cow dungs will also fall from the sky. Complete with the smell.
Sigh...
Tired...

This morning, as always, my tv went off at 7 and I had set it always on E! Entertainment. A channel full of celebrity gossips, useless information like, where Britney grew up, or the struggle that Tyra had when she was an awkward kid who was as tall as a coconut tree.
But this morning, I was thinking. Let's see what's going on the world!
And switched to NBC's Today Show.
Matt Lauer was babbling about something.
Then I went to the bathroom while still listening to it.
And all of a sudden they are talking about.
Tom Cruise.
Now, I thought Tom Cruise would just stick to E! Entertainment Channel.
But, nooo...
It was reported that this weekend he'll get married with Katie. And yesterday, Katie went to a store and bought 4 lingerie items and 2 boxer shorts.
Four lingerie items!
And two boxer shorts!
I can't believe they reported that on the news.
The world has gone mad.
And I thought the headlines has gone berserk when they put headlines like: "TomKat has touched down in Italy" or, "The dress has arrived in the hotel".
But...
Four lingerie items and two boxers I think tops them all.

Soooo...
My mom's had her 60th birthday last Saturday (on the 11th). I called her in her morning time and chatted with her and wish her well. Dimcorner also talked to her and wished her a happy birthday. Aw... so cute, the two of them communicating.
It is kind of sad not be able to be there for her big six zero, but I guess that's how it would go now, wouldn't it?
So as the compensation, since my whole family was going for some sushi for my mom's birthday, I also went for some sushi here with Dimcorner.
So to sushi place we went!
It was raining hard here and it was chilly. If it was not because of my mom's birthday, I would have cancelled the dinner plan, but we went anyway and we binged.



That's my hands holding a couple of pieces of bonito.

I really admire my mom on her 'getting old' issue. She chose to enjoy it rather than sulking on her age.
Way to go mom!!!
And she makes me have no reason to sulk over my upcoming birthday when I'm going to join the big group of 'thirty something".

Ah,.. what is age? Just a number that anyway you can lie about.
Hah.

GO TEAM BRITNEY!

Usually I don't really blog a lot about celebrity gossip unless it really affects my state of mind (or in other words: it pisses me off or tickles me so). But after a few days of holding my giggles back, I just have to laugh out loud, roll on the floor, peeing my pants... hahaha... Britney Spears is getting a divorce.
Sigh...
Man, I'm not laughing at the painful divorce she's gonna have, knowing that K-Fed (or as the media labels him now as Fed-ex) would try to squeeze every single dime that he might be able to get his hands on and make a fool of himself. And now Britney has said that she would give pictures of his children for free which I bet to prevent Fed-ex to sell the babies pictures.
Anyway, I'm laughing at how BLIND can love be. And how damaging blind love is.
Huh. Because, even I, bluecactus, who's not always can smell losers from afar, can tell that pesky Fed-ex was bad news just from glances at the TV.
But I guess every one of us needs to be a fool in love, at least once in a lifetime. And now, Britney, somehow, has gotten mentally slapped and woken up & smelled the coffee. I wonder what kind of slap it was.
I bet now in LA they'll be starting to sell t-shirts, one that said: TEAM BRITNEY, and the other one is TEAM KEVIN.
In that case then, go team Britney!
Kick his a**.!!

Ain't being an adult grand?

You try your best to be an adult. Think like an adult. Act like an adult. Be responsible like an adult. Voice your opinion like an adult.
Because you are. Demographic wise, a twenty-nine-year-old person is an adult.
You are independent, you work to support yourself, then if possible, try to invest. Start thinking about money management, considering the future, a place to purchase, a car to buy, your job security, how many kids you will want to have.
Then you also think about your family, the ones who used to take care of you. Now, the table has turned and you are taking care of them. Might not be financially, but could be emotionally.
You used to think your parents are all that. That they were the best, that you wanted to be like them when you grow up. Now you see that they are mere mortals. With flaws and actual weaknesses, that, in fact, you start to support.
You know, being an adult is almost like eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad in Eden. Because, once you eat it then you know. And everything afterwards is about consideration. And making the right decisions.
At this particular moment, that John Mayer lyric chimes in in my head "quarter life crisis".
I think, that's what I'm having but four years too late.
Sigh...
having said that, being an adult is great.
Really. I don't want to exchange this with another 10 years of adolesence, the period of life when I thought that I was the ultimate ugly duckling, just trying to fit in a cruel society.

I think I just need a nap.
A long one.
Heck, make that a hibernation phase for a whole winter.
I'm tired.

Is it bad if I start buying new clothes to avoid doing laundry?

I was driving with my coworkers to a client lunch the other day when a male coworker told me that I drove like a man.
That was after I accelerated and passed the yellow light and after I 'only rolled' passed a stop sign instead of completely fully stopped.
I laughed and and jokingly said: hey,... is that a compliment or an insult?
He said while grinning, he's also impatient and has been driving with the same style too.
Then a female coworker who sat in the back jumped in the conversation and said, hey, it is not good to generalize people like that, you know.
I smiled and thinking ironically about how many gender jokes emails I and my other female coworker have been receiving from her.

Don't we all generalize people up to a certain level? Like, men are all sloppy. That car darted like a maniac, the driver must be a man. Women are all bitches. Women don't know how to fix the plumbing. Or, old Asian ladies don't know how to wait in line. Heee... that one is personal experience from back home. Give me a bunch of aunties lining up for something. I don't think I ever saw it worked. Especially for something enticing and free.

Me, I used to think that all men were bastard. Well, you see, I wasn't really all that lucky in relationships, hence the bitterness.
However, I gradually forgot that I thought that men are all bastards. Mainly because I realized that I knew quite a few of she-bastards too, and I then met nice men with good hearts.

Although,... let me tell you a little experience I have. I hate it when I'm driving on the highway and I bumped into a car that is slow... but on the fastest lane. For crying out loud, why does it have to stayed on the fastest lane?
And when I pass those suckers, most of them (if not all) are women. Or old gramps or grandmas.
I know... generalization.
But I guess there is a reason why women drivers' car insurance cost is different than men.
Which one do you think is higher?
Men.
Hah!
You thought it would be women, didn't you?
Well... considering that women drive like turtles having a leisure walk, statistically, the impact of the accident won't be as bad the the guys, whom I mostly saw have been darting and zigzagging left and right on the highway, 100 mph, like he's actually trying to get killed (and bring some people with him along the way).

And statistically, I think, it might be true that most women might not know how to fix a broken plumbing and most men don't know how to cook, but I bet there are wives who are better in fixing plumbing problem than their husbands. And women who don't cook and have chefs as their husbands.
So, having said that and statistics aside, I started to stop generalizing people, especially the heavy allegations like all men are cheaters (or bastards, or assh***,wait... I meant a**hole or many others accusations). And stick with personal remarks like: Andy is a bastard, because he is. Rather than saying all men are bastards.
Hehehe... fair enough?

My dear nephew just got a cellphone.
Nine year old kid with a cellphone.
And, to my surprise, he's not extraordinary for having a cellphone because the school now allow cellphones, although with a very strict set of rules, like no phone while school's in session (which leave them to... what? 15 minutes recess?)
I remember my days when I was nine. The cordless phone hasn't even been invented yet.
And now, my dear nephew starts on sending me text messages to me from Jakarta, which I love because it's really cute, but it also makes me scared how vast the change of childhood experience that he has compared to mine.

It was mortifying enough that when a few years after my high school years, I saw high school girls with make up. Make-freaking-up.
I remember thinking, those kids, minor kids, plug their eyebrows to get the Krisdayanti effect. They butchered their innocence with their make up. But it was nothing, I guess, compared to nine-year-olds with cellphones.

Now, my sweetheart sends me messages almost daily, without fully knowing the concept of our time difference that it might be 2 am my time when he sent it. And he's busy telling me what he's doing (I'm eating doughnut or I'm going for a swim), and asking me questions like when I'm going home (which I answered, when I'm becoming a bride, on which he answered: wow... a bride, how cool!).
And as weird as it might be, I embrace this phenomenon joyously, may I say, a bit of relief.
I always fear that he'd forget me.
First he'd forget my face, then finally totally forget that he has another aunt.
But now, I'm relieved.
That kiddo hasn't forgot about me.
That I exist in his world.
That I matter.
That he misses me.
And that feeling...
it's priceless. Heartmelting. Joyful. And just plain wonderful.

Finally my buddy left for good. I, being a loner, have almost totally lost all of my hangout friends. One more close friend in downtown, then I'm totally out.
For some reasons, though I was (and am) sad, I didn't shed tears, maybe because I have high hopes for him to have a better & greater future back home. So, though I am sad, I am anxious & excited for him too.
I arrived here with only two persons waiting for me, one was my roommate and the other one was him. And now, his journey here ended with me standing by the gate until he disappeared from the crowd. Funny, both took place at some gates in an airport.
Fate does have its satiric little jokes.
People come, people go.
And life goes on.

It finally snowed...
sigh...

My other dog died.
There. The pet chapter has ended.
No more pets for my poor mom as she said to me earlier, there's just too much emotional attachment.
Since my horsey faced dog died, this other dog, who was the spouse of the horsey-faced had been in a quiet gloomy mood. She barely made a noise, barely fussed about anything anymore. She just sat there quietly in the corner.
I guess that's love.
Ain't it grand?
I'd imagine that in pet heaven they meet again and the conversation would be like this:
Horsey-faced: Hey, yo! Whaddup! What the heck are you doing here, girl?
Chubby-bule: Ow, shut up, where the hell have you been? You know I'm blind and can't see, I've been trying to catch a glimpse of your sound, to no avail, tried to sniff a whiff of your smelly ass, but to no success too. Why did you leave me?
Horsey-faced: Cutie pie, had you heard the rhythm of my heartbeat??? I was amazed I survived that long. Now, how come you are here so fast after me?
Chubby-bule: Because life is empty and worthless without being able to sniff your smelly ass.
Then they lick each other's nose and wag their tails.

Sigh... you know... something like that.

And after that I hope they can look down and see me weep and understand how much I miss them and their stinking asses.

I have forced myself into some Mariah Carey, the happy, cheese songs, to uplift my mood.
I've been in this gloomy, shadowy mood these past days, I feel like lord of the dark. I have enough of 'the drugs don't work anymore', enough George Michael (his suicidal mood album - Older) and I have enough of Prayer for the Dying by Seal.

I know why I'm all depressed and in a constant bad mood, partly because I have this suppressed mourning of my dead 110-year-old horsey faced dog, but I think, it also have something to do with many other factors, namely (now, hear my bitch about my world):
Big project at work that's crushing me to death (I know I'd survive this and become a better developer after this, but, heck... I'd be better but black and blue), hyper / ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) boss, annoying co-workers (also hyper and ADD), lack of communication with boyfriend who is busy with his dad's health and mom's... don't know what, best friend going back home for good, and let me just summarize another source of my depression into 3 words: preparation for wedding. I don't even want to go there.
Not to mention the fact that I am almost 30, and I wonder where the heck did the last 10 years go... oh,.. yeah,... right: went to school till I dropped dead and worked my ass off, also till drop dead.

I knoooooooow i know, the glass-half-full people (I used to be one) would advice me to look at the bright side, blah blah blah... but I feel like bitching.
When I was younger, I thought, I'll grow up, move out and be independent.
Well,... I'm here, all grown up, moved out, and independent.
...
...
...
Now what?

I also thought, then I have no curfew, no one can tell me what to do and when to go home...
Now that I can go to the clubs till I literally intoxicated with alcohol and should be brought to the hospital, I am ready to go to bed by 10 pm. Have no desire to go clubbing to see people rubbing against each other (yuck), drinking apple martinis till the world spins and have the worst hangover the next day and have some drunken guy grope my butt or asked my how I am doin'.
Let's face it, my era has passed. The wildest experience I had lately was going to Denny's and order myself some very large greasy, 'cholestrolful', breakfast. Even then, I can't get over how gross it was for the whole day, I was completely bloated.
Sigh...
Okay,... I'm going to bed.
This Mariah has gone 1 octave too high. I just have to shut her out.

p.s. I shut her out and play some Stan Getz. See how old I've become???

My dog died.


People have different ways of expressing goodbyes. Me, I hate it, but like my good bye to Casimoro, I had to find him before I left.
I made sure I walked my coworker to the elevator on her last day.
I went in to the doctor's office when when we decided to put one of my dogs to sleep and watched the doctor jabbed the needle to his heart.
I cried while holding my nephews and brother before going back here.
They were all painful, well, maybe accept the goodbye to Casimoro, although it was still sad.

This dog of mine is ugly, black, short fur, with long and awkward looking legs. He actually looked like a horse instead of a dog. Really really unattractive.
But like all moms, they always love their children and subjectively think that their kids are the best, the cutest, the prettiest. I do too.

But there was no closure between us. I want to be there when he exhaled his last breath. I bet I would've been crying, wailing, shaking, heartbroken, mourning, hyperventilating while holding his paws... If I hadn't passed out. But I'm big at that. That's how I deal.

And now my dog died.
He'll be cremated then my mom will pick up his ashes and they'll go to the sea and spread his ashes away.
And I'm right here, inside my la la land, untouched, in a sterile, perfect, Brady Bunch environment.
And I've been wanting to cry, to wail, to sob but I can't and I don't know why.
I feel this grieve inside my chest.
My head is pounding.
My throat is choked.
I can't breathe.
My heart is almost physically in pain.
And inside my head, there is this unstoppable movie clips of my dog. playing over and over and over and over and over and over again.
When he was born, and how I thought, man, this one is ugly.
When he did his daily barking to the postman.
The close ups of his horsey face and horsey legs.

And I can't freaking cry even though I feel empty.
And dark.
And in pain.


Listening to: The drugs Don't Work - The Verve
The drugs didn't work anymore, it just made him worse.

How much crap is too much crap?
How much manner is too polite?
What is politically correct anyway?
Don't you love it if you can just blurted out anything you really want to say?
No need to considerate other people's feeling, or the office policy, or if people would question whether your parents taught you well.
Like when a white guy once yelled at me from his car "Go back to Asia." I wished I was fast enough to yell something back like "No, you go back to Europe!"
Besides.... this land was originally belong to the red Indians anyway.
I am really bummed out today, not a good Sunday at all.

Por favor, when someone never makes a remark about your choices in life, your lifestyle, the way you do your hair, or, the color of your toe nails or for Pete's sake, why you are wearing pink tutus today, please be courteous enough not comment on their choices.
It's rude. And below the belt.
There's a reason why I don't make a remark on people's choices, and that's because I don't appreciate people tell me how I should run my life.

Having said that, every time I encounter this kind of things, there two things that I'm always thankful for the event. One is, I'm thankful that I am exposed of such thing that I understand what to expect or not to expect from that person in the future. Second, I'm thankful that I am not that bitter/critical/superficial/mean-hearted or whatever the trait that was being conveyed.

And the later one makes me think... hey,... I'm not too bad at all... I'm actually a nice person.

The Crackhead

I went in.
Inhaled the nicely scented air.
I walked slowly. Examining.
I was in a state of bliss.
All were pleasantly arranged based on type and color.
I touched.
I tried.
I smelled.
I rubbed.
I get excited.
My heart rate increased.
Then...
I bought
YET ANOTHER LOTION from Bath and Body Works.
You see...
I have a disorder.
The Bath and Body Works Disorder.
I know I have lots and lots of lotions and soaps and body wash, and room fragrances and body splashes, in many different sizes, in jars, tubes and bottles. I put my bottles according to color and the purposes in my cabinet. They give me comfort. I keep some in the office, in the bathroom, on my nightstand and once I had a tube of lotion in my car,... until the winter froze it and the consistency was never the same again after it warmed up.
I have the supply of lotions that will last until I give birth to my first child, and mind you, I haven't even set a wedding date yet.
I've got the BBWD.
Bath and Body Works is just like crack.
Like just now, I opened my cabinet and, gasped, I have a full tube of cherry blossom body wash. AND the moonlight path one too. (Whisper) I don't know when I bought them...
I wonder if anyone is experiencing the same thing.

My friend cancelled going back to Indonesia. Yay!
At the last minute, finally someone saw his potential and hired him.
It's about time.
Although... he'll be going to New York and, still, leave me here in the flat Midwest land with no one to have dimsum party with.
But, it's okay, my cellphone covers national plan, we're only 12 hours apart (by car) and an hour different, time zone wise.
Plus, YANKEES Stadium! Here I come!
A friend in times of happiness is easy to find, a friend in sorrow hard hardly ever exists.
He's the second kind.

I wish him well, all I can say is: Dude, don't go to the ghetto by yourself, and find a nice apartment by the subway with extra space for me to crash.
Peace out... we'll be in touch. After helping me out moving my stuff from place to place,... finally, I need to really get myself some professional movers the next time I change address.

I hate goodbyes, but what can I say? I do the goodbye this time with a smile... how can you not? My best friend can now officially sing: I'm an Alien in New York.

The Bro Who Never Says 'I love you'

"... Dad can't never learn that we are all adults now, can't you see that, Cil?
Just like me, the memory I have in my head when I think of you is just when you were little. So when mom was busy with something, she would put you on the sofa and told me to keep an eye on you so you wouldn't roll and tumble down on the floor... hahaha... really. That's the thing I remember when I think of you.
But now you are all grown up,
and getting married.
It feels surreal..."

A chunk of email from my big brother, who always calls me 'Cil' as in short for 'little'.

Funny he remembers me that way, I remember him playing the role of a big evil giant and chasing me and my friends around when we played in the yard. The person who tied the blanket around me neck as a cape and told me to run around being superman. Then he's made me a sword when I told him I want to be a kungfu master.
He's my saviour when it comes to guys. Put senses into my head. Diverted me from being a whiny, prissy little princess I could have been & told me to kick back the six graders who bullied me at school. He was the one who held me and said it's okay to not be the top three in the class, he was in the bottom three in his class and he was doing fine. He said all sort of politically incorrect advice, but without him, I wouldn't be the person I am to day.

He put the reason behind so many decisions in my life.

He's my hero.

The big angry evil giant in the yard.

I was washing my hands in the restroom when I glanced at the mirror and saw the reflection of my hair.
Black hair, black shiny hair
... and I saw a strand of gray hair there.
At least I thought I saw one.
I tried to look closer but couldn't so I decided that I should grab my hair on that spot and run back to my desk and ask my coworker who was sitting right next to me and also my best friend in the office to look into it, find the darn thing and plug it out.
So with one hand up above my head,... grabbing a small group of hair strands up in the air, while the other hand pushed the door open, I walked out of the ladies room when,... of course,
Yes of course,
the DBA of the company came out of the men's room and saw me holding my hair up in the air.
Nice.
Can't get geekier pose than that.
These things seems like, only happen to me.
So I dropped my hair. Smiled. And said: "Hi, Rob".
And he gentlemanlikely smiled back and said "Hi, Bluecactus."
Then ever so coolly I walked away cursing inside.
Stupid gray hair.