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???