Procrastination

There are simple tasks in my everyday life which I could do as easily as just snapping my fingers, such as just spending one minute to record down my daily timesheet . Instead I put it off and spend 20 minutes on writing this pointless entry. I digress, my procrastination is beginning to cause me grief as a mountain of chores await me at home. The flat is in dire need of cleaning and I swear the never-ending army of spiders which regularly return to nest in my corners were having an sm party with some poor hapless moths last night.

Books are starting to pile all over my floor because of my uncontrollable reading habit and I have ran out of space to store them - also because I have been procrastinating on buying a new bookcase. And along with my book purchases are the plastic bags they came with. This together with the plastic bags I continuously bring home from packing my dirty laundry at gym is beginning to get really unsightly. I could easily just throw these away, but the environmentalist in me believes I should be sparing in unleashing these into the environment. It takes me weeks to fill up one average plastic bag with garbage, and I am bringing back one plastic bag everyday. You do the math. On a side note, whenever my mom comes to visit, she can somehow amazingly produce enough garbage to fill one plastic bag to the brim within less than 12 hours. Speaking of garbage, my bags of recyclables are way overdue for the recycling centre but yet I put this off week after week.

Despite my obsession in making my flat look pretty, I can be really apathetic sometimes when it comes to clearing things away. For instance, weeks back when Laynie and MRS OKABE came over. Now MRS OKABE is a chronic snacker. Not only is he a snacker, he also happens to be a picky snacker. He snubbed my mom's homemade chocolate coated cookies for sugar laden Cadbury candies which he conveniently helped himself to from my fridge. After satisfying himself, he just dumps the wrappers on my side table - which I only noticed ONE WEEK later. Actually this may be more due to the frequency I am at home but Sam, if you're reading this, I AM NOT PLEASED. I should have a cattle prod handy whenever he comes to visit.

Paradox

In this life, I have more dislikes than likes. I blame it on the cynical streak I'd probably inherited from my mother. More than often I get a heavier dose of dislikes than likes, which again like the vicious cycle that is my life reinforces the cynicism in me. Like for instance:

I hate being gay but there is just nothing one can really do about that, or is there? Turn straight? Get a girlfriend? Get married? Punch out a few kids? Hooray, sounds hopeful already. Maybe I am generalising but I feel there is nothing more annoying than gay people (next to stupid politicians), but look, I am one of them. So therefore I am annoyed at myself. It's karma.

I don't like not having any close friends. Perhaps it is the cynicism in me that prevents me from forming a close bond to anyone or maybe it is just that people are just natural hypocrites. I like communicating but I get easily frustrated when people do not understand me. And lo behold, most of my friends are gay, so therefore I must be annoyed at my friends too.

I hate being bored and alone. Okay, maybe sometimes I don't, the latter I mean. There are times when I would just daydream away about being filthy rich so I could entertain any whim which comes into my mind - I would never suffer from boredom. Jet off to any country like as if it is just a drive down to the convenience store. But since I am not, I will just have to suffer in silence and wallow in the rut.

I hate myself for not being born pretty. Prettiness rules the world because everybody likes pretty things. Pretty will get you anywhere just as long as you continue being pretty. It won't matter that you won't look so pretty when you hit 40, at least all the good things you collected in your 40 years of being pretty will last you through the next 40. Besides, I don't intend to live beyond 39. But I am not pretty, so I will have to continue to use my brains to get ahead. However, even being brainy will require you to have a pretty face for acceptance, otherwise everyone will just think you're being an arrogant bitter cunt, so why even bother.

I can't remember when was the last time when I passed through a day without some form self restraint and feeling like I want to sink my fist into someone's face. I can't remember when was the last time I felt at peace with myself and the world.

Silkworms

I feel like writing but no topic comes to my head. In truth, there are plenty of things in my head just that it is hard to sort them out now when I can hardly keep awake. It's another quiet day in the office and for once I find myself devoid of work in a long time. Can't say I am not thankful, just that I wish i didn't have to feel so bored all the time. Actually I feel bored whether there is work or not and it all culminates in a vicious cycle. I feel bored, therefore I do not feel inspired to work, and as a result my mind begins to wander, causing me to eventually get sleepy. While I am fighting to keep awake, I get frustrated because my work is getting delayed due to my inability to concentrate. For any designer, there can't be any worse situation to be in than to feel bored with his/her job.

Once upon a time, I would shirk off from my studies to indulge in art. Now I can't remember the last time when I felt any passion to indulge in anything art related. I blame it on responsibilities. That and passion simply don't mix. There were two stages in my life when I experienced how responsibility turned passion into a burden. When I was kid I had a voracious appetite for science - up till it became a subject in school. Then it became tiresome, and my breaking point came when I forced to study it in depth. I was interested in knowing factoids, not delve into formulas like E = mc2. What was the point? Just how many of us are going to make a life out of doing that? Especially not in this country too. So from there I went into my favourite pastime, art. The moment I stepped into university, I found my abilities stifled by rigid rules which lecturers claimed are the basic principles of art. I recalled once in painting class, the lecturer gave me a C+ because he said I wasn't expressing myself, merely illustrating. Jesus... so now people think they could psycho-analyse what I paint and draw. Maybe I would have got an A+ for sexual angst if I ejaculated and peed all over my canvas. Joining the creative industries didn't help expand my creativity either, rather the contrary. I found myself increasingly stifled by artistically-challenged clients and bosses who insisted I should think out of the box but yet at the same time confine me to their rules.

So I find myself now in the present. What do I do in my free time when I am not burdened with work? Surfing for totally useless factoids in Wikipedia, reading on things from how zhi gung practitioners view masturbation as "spiritual suicide" to how silkworms get massacred in their pupae so as not to damage their silk cocoons. Maybe we are all just like the silkworms, majority massacred prematurely for what we can do, not what we can potentially be, while the rest are bred to continue the vicious cycle. I miss the days of childhood when everyday seemed like a new discovery instead of this current jaded mockery of existence.

Stray Leaders

It's rather appalling for me to read in the papers today of the Johor Housing and Local Government Committee casually stating that they are short of dog shooters and are promising to continue a systematic eradication of stray dogs. Seriously, like what the fuck? I am sure it is an added bonus to know that they are also systematically eradicating common sense as well. Surely there must be a rational and humane way of dealing with the problem? I mean all the harping about how Westerners should look into the root cause of terrorism instead of waging an all out war on so called terrorist sponsoring Middle Eastern countries, and they can't apply the same concept on some poor defenseless canines? What about educating the public and imposing heavier penalties on people who abandon and abuse their pets?

And why should dogs be singled out all the time. I am not about to make any big conclusion here but I am suspecting the harassment of canines comes from the fact that they are considered "unclean" by certain people. Have anyone ever seen local councils declaring "systematic eradication" of cats? Hell, have anyone ever even heard of anyone doing anything to stray cats other than the hypocritical SPCA (no offence, but I have a personal vendetta against SPCA) occasionally highlighting their plight.

Do cats also not have the possibility of carrying rabies? I am not discriminating cats or saying that the authorities should also start shooting cats just to be fair. Felines share just the same amount of abuse as their canine counterparts, though not the same amount of prejudice. What I am trying to highlight here is that the so called menace that the authorities would like us to believe exist with stray dogs is probably just as bogus their "beautification projects". There is simply no plausible excuse to state that stray dogs are dangerous. As far as I knew and experienced, stray cats have also been known to attack humans. Majority of time all strays, cats or dogs will flee at the sight of humans anyway, and I wonder why? Fear of stupid humans perhaps? If you don't shoot cats why do you have to shoot dogs?

Or why not a systematic eradication of rats which by the way can carry up to thirty different diseases dangerous to humans including the bubonic plague. There seems to be an abundance of these rodents hanging around in eateries that sighting them is as common as the morning jam. Go figure. Maybe we should do a systematic eradication of idiotic leaders instead. Yup, I say let us just shoot them on sight like dogs (pun intended).

Obsession

You will know you have a problem when you realise point-blank that you could possibly be doing something severely detrimental to yourself but you are still doing it. Such was my case yesterday, when I found myself struggling in the gym despite being just barely recovered from a case of fever and diarrhoea. Though I did have my class done by a replacement on the day the ailment struck, I was back to the routine again barely 24 hours later (yes, all this despite me complaining being bored of my routine life in my previous entry).

I was feeling the strain already right after my class and I knew my weakened body simply could not take the strain of a session at the weights section. But yet despite my body faltering, I was there. With each push at the bench press I could hear a voice in my head yelling at me that I was insane. My muscles were a chorus of tormented screams but yet I still managed to struggle through three exercises before I finally stopped. Not because I was finally giving in to my condition but more because I realised it was getting late. So why did I do it? Part vanity, part masochist - I simply refused to allow myself to be weak.

It can be a real pain when you are conditioned to believe that all things good come with a price...

Snagged

Bitter and dejected, that's how I felt last Friday night. I know I shouldn't be because I know it's none of my friends' fault, but still I couldn't contain the flood that was welling inside. I don't want to sound like I am glorifying myself yet again but I have always did what I could when friends needed me, albeit sometimes reluctantly but most people who know me understands I never begrudge anyone when it comes to rendering assistance. For some reason, last Friday night I just did not feel like I wanted to be alone after finishing work at the gym after 10pm so I started calling up friends in hopes I can at least have some company for dinner. However phone call after phone call left me feeling more and more angst. Calls were not answered or I was simply given a brush off. Maybe I shouldn't use the word "brush off" because technically my friends had no obligation to entertain me anyway at such short notice so they had every right to decline me and certainly no malice were meant. It was Friday night after all.

I think I became desperate enough to call up someone who lived totally out of the way and in a place I was not even familiar with, but of course, the reply was the same. In the end, I just went back to the McDonald's nearby my home and resigned myself to wallow over junk food. By that time, friends who were not answering my calls earlier had started calling back but I was no longer in a mood to talk and explain myself, so I just rejected all the calls. It's not that I was really angry or blaming them for anything.

The experience left me questioning about who I am really. Earlier in the day, a colleague of mine was discussing with me over lunch about the meaning of all our existence. It wasn't about the spiritual aspect, more towards what kind of lives are we all leading. Are we more than the routine we live everyday - wake up, traffic jam, office, work, work, work and more work. In the night, I practically force myself into an exercise routine which is both mixture of work and self-disciplining. Sometimes when I think about it, I feel like I am some kind of pet rodent to some higher being. At the end of the day, what does it all mean? I must admit, I never questioned myself over this other than the fact that I know I am bored with my routine life.

Longing For The Tuscan Sun

After lending my Under The Tuscan Sun DVD to a friend for months, I finally got it back over the weekend. And just out of a whim, I decided to watch it again last night. For obviously clear reasons, I simply love the movie for the plain feel-good theme. Generally I am not a sucker for romantic movies but I do like the genre. I am just not for the whole nauseating over-the-top Titanic kind of romance which just leaves you wishing both the protagonists would shut up and die horribly. Under The Tuscan Sun, though having a predictable happy ending was more about letting go and taking life by the horns.

Very loosely based on the memoirs of Frances Mayes, the movie puts the author in a fictional setting as a depressed, recently divorced writer, Frances (Diane Lane) who is sent on a gay tour of Italy by her lesbian friend, Patti (Sandra Oh). Out of an impulse, she purchases a dilapidated villa in Tuscany and finds a new life in her new home. The best part of the movie has to be how they played around with how in one of her depressed state, Frances expresses her doubts in ever having a family to fill the home she just bought and that she wanted there to be a wedding. In the end, she gets her wish, though not in exactly the way she expected. Lindsay Duncan as the eccentric advice dispensing English expatriate, Katherine was a joy to watch.

The movie was also partly the reason why I am saving up so I could take a trip to Italy one day. Not so much as hoping that I can experience the same thing in the movie (what am I going to purchase a villa in Tuscany with?), but more to just see the same sights. As Sandra Oh's character said, "How can you say no to Italy?". Would be fun though if you can buy a nice little villa in some rural part of Italy and live a life without worry. Just take a look at the picture on the left. What I would do to wake up to a scene like this every morning rather than rows and rows of generic sterile flats and terrace houses on stripped earth and screwed up LDP traffic.