silly rain

I was always a fortunate kid, and I think I was pretty priviledged. My parents are't exactly rolling in dough, but I definitely had a comfortable childhood. My first home was, as I remembered it, huge. Enough room for me to crawl under tables and imagine elaborate stories where I was Kamen Rider's plucky young sidekick, and the world needed my very vague but very important talents. And lovely blank walls I was allowed to 'decorate' with childish scribbles and valiant attempts at forging my parent's signatures (they never signed off on assignments and permission slips, they eventually gave up asking if I needed anything signed).

We had a sprawling back garden filled with Duku trees and Mango trees, and shapely Salak palm trees in the distance (which I had to be careful about approaching, because SNAKES!), and rows upon rows of Suflir that sit pretty, awaiting my mum's attention. There was enough room for me to practice riding my bike and a gently slopped roof where my brother had his afternoon naps. I tried joining him once, I was rewarded with laughter as I got stuck and spent half an hour trying to get back down.

I was rarely bored at home, even if I spent hours alone. I was a pretty self sufficient kid, easily amused by my own imagination. And if I was ever really desperately lonely, I could always hop down a stone path to my gran's sister's house next door and bug my teenage aunts and uncles, settling down for an afternoon of noodles and music I didn't quite understand. Or if I wanted to play with someone my own age I could ask my Mbak to hail a becak so I can ride to my gran's house and trick my younger (by 6 months!!) cousin into doing something silly. She was always a lot more sensible than I ever was.

Approaching dusk, I'd have to be safely ushered indoors because that would be the time the wild monkeys would come out to play, swinging on washing lines, ripping of any unfortunate item of clothing forgotten there. They'd be wreaking general havoc, as I watched fascinated safe behind a pane of glass. I took the saying "Monkey see, monkey do." to a whole other level, I consider it a stroke of luck that I didn't turn out violent like those bastards.

This sudden onslaught of nostalgia was brought on by the rain. And I think my love of rain started from that house. My Condet house. Because we had a nice patio, with the most uncomfortable rattan lounger where I nevertheless spent hours watching it pour down. This lovely thick curtain of water obscuring the world outside, keeping me safe from monkeys, and mosquitoes. Cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning never really scared me, and I'd stay curled up with a mug of hot chocolate, quietly enjoying the feeling of being some type of magical creature living behind a waterfall.

It's raining today, and I'm safe inside my tiny little picture perfect brick house. But right now, I'm remembering Condet, and all the happy moments I spent there as a child.

easily amused~

I feel ya Russell.. You know.. Sans pubes comment.

Traveling with friends = BEYOND AWESOME, but I can't deny that traveling alone is one of my favorite things to do. The plane ride, filled with melancholic staring of the fluffy white clouds outside (and then your eyes hurting because fuck it it's too damn bright), and the awkward look the taxi driver gives you when you're obviously on holiday alone.. I'm weird but it just fills me with glee, okay. Honestly, I like holidays on my own because I get to space out in a strange new place and it's a lot more romantic to smile at strangers having fun, rather than when you're out with your friends and they're bugging you to just fucking get ready, the trannies are about to start their awesome pole dancing at the gay bar across town. (Which were honestly hands down, some of the best dancing I've ever seen.)

easily bored

And yet easily amused.

I need some fun changes in my life. This would usually mean a drastic haircut, but I kinda need to grow my hair out for m'darling Quincey's wedding. I could pierce my ears some more, but I keep loosing my earrings, and I barely have enough for my current piercings. I could get a tattoo, but thinking of what I want permanently etched on my skin is a bit too much effort for a random rainy day musing.

So I basically decided I'm totally going to dye my hair. A fun, bright colour. Not completely though, I think I'm going to keep the top part of my head a dark colour, and then bleach the rest of it. It sounds awful, but it will look absolutely brilliant. I swear. So. Colours.

Option 1.

Isn't it the purdiest shade ever? A little Sailor Moon-y, no? Though for the life of me, I don't remember if any of the Sailors ever sported a hair this shade.. So. Green. Either this shade, or maybe a darker shade.. A sort of dark leaf green. Like a right-in-the-middle-of-rainy-season leaf green. All rich and fresh looking.

Option 2.

I love purple. Purple is my favourite colour. And apparently 'ungu' ('purple' in Indonesian~) was my first word. My mum is forever disappointed her kids refused have 'mum' as their first words. (My brother's was ' Toyota'.. Not surprising considering he's still a car enthusiast to this day..)

Option 3.

This lovely washed out shade of blue. Something very anime-ish about this colour. My 15 year old self would totally vote for this one. Bleaching my head and dealing with the subsequent hair-issues would be worth it for this shade though. I mean look at it.

Option 4.

Apparently, really bright shades wash out pretty quickly. So this shade of pink is on my to-do list, regardless. I don't think I'll pick it right away though. The pic is here for the sole reason that I think Miss A's Jia is super hot, and I have the biggest girl crush ever on her.

All pics found via google image search soz if I grabbed one of yours~

So yeah. Waiting for some of the cash from my freelance jobs to finally drop down into my bank account and then BAM. Goodbye boring hair!

Have some bonus Miss A eye-candy. Because I love Jia. And Min (the tiny girl with the asymmetrical hair).. But mostly Jia.

unexpected

So I have an Evil Twin. Well. Sort of. He likes to think that I'm the evil one, but really, I'm not. He totally is.

He's a dude I met right at the start of uni, and we hit it off straight away, because basically - we liked making fun of people and being snarky. So yes, we decided that we're practically twins because we had a shitload in common, and zero attraction to one another. Probably because he thinks that I'm "a cool dude with long hair." - his exact words. Repeated so many times over the years that I'm starting to believe it myself.

Cue years of making fun of other people, making fun of each other, and occasional petty comments which may or not may not have resulted in incredibly childish name-calling tournaments.

For the past three years or so though, I've only seen Sir Twinno something like once a year. Usually on his birthdays. And that's only because he has an awesome girlfriend who usually rounds up all his friends for his birthdays (alas, even when I had boyfriends, they were sorry excuses for human beings.).. Work, traffic jams and other lame excuses have sort of been getting in the way of our friendships. Even the phone calls have dwindled down in frequency over time. Mostly because he was just a phone call away. An easy enough distance to cover, no?

Well, not for the next year or so. Because today I drove to the airport to send him off to Scotland. To nom on haggis. Uh.. I meant to continue his studies. Bastard. And I say that with affection.

I'm not big on tears, and I wasn't expecting to be that sad over his leaving, because if you think about it, next time I see him it'll be a year (or so) from now, and it's exactly what would have happened if he had stayed. See him once this year, and then again next year. But it sucks. Because the option of calling him up whenever I want has suddenly disappeared.

I have not used my time wisely. We should have hung out more often. Because hey, if you have a friend who understands your need to bitch and not be a Nice Person all the time (even if that means sometimes getting seriously insulted and angry sometimes), you should appreciate them.

And okay, part of it is maybe because I may have been contemplating my friendships a lot lately. Especially considering the way some people have unexpectedly disappeared from my life. So yeah, I'm feeling a little sad over some friendships that I feel I could have 'saved' if only I had made more of an effort.

Ah well, that's another topic for another day though. This one is for Sir Twinno.

So here's to my Evil Twin. May you do well in your studies, and I hope you don't piss off too many people. Come home soon, and we'll bitch about the table across from us. Because you know we'll find something to cackle about.

hullo there~

"sometimes i just remember that i haven’t actually met my internet friends in real life and they live thousands of miles away. and that they actually have a house and a family and go to school or college and they do stuff and they exist not on the internet and then i realise how fragile our friendship is

like they could just get bored and never log on again and that would be it"

Originally found during a random trek through tumblr..

I can't help but wonder where some of them are. It's easy enough to just write them off as random usernames, or even figments of my sometimes over active imaginations. That is, if I had no visible evidence of their existence.

I have a half finished novel still stored in my computer from a guy I only know as 'Matt the Pony Guy', a nickname I bestowed on a random Australian who amused me. A collection of poems and a wedding invitation from a girl in Africa who goes by the nick Svitgurl. Stories posted online with me as the beta (editor) or my stories getting beta-d by other random nicknames. A folder of pictures of this random beardy guy I've gotten to know (HA! Hello A!). A copy of The Davinci Code (don't judge, I wanted this book. And it will forever have a special place in my heart because of who gave it to me), and some other mangas that err.. umm.. would be better left unmentioned. And of course a coffee date with the lovely Colson, who Calvin and Jo and I like to refer to as opa. And songs.

God, I have so many songs in all sorts of languages, that I vaguely remember getting from these awesome people. (Ich find Dich Scheisse is still by far my favourite. Thanks.. Ehh.. Corn? Or was it you low_? Neithan-kun maybe?)

You don't think about how fragile these friendships formed online can be.. If anything were to happen to me, I don't think anyone would ever have the thought of 'oh hey I should tell these people on Mouse's address book that she's no longer available to reply to their emails.'.. Which makes me sad, because I don't value these friendships any less when compared to people I regularly meet and chat with. And it goes both ways I suppose. I don't know what happened to so many of the people I've come across in the years since I've started using teh interwebz.

I guess this post is a 'hello' to anyone who might have known me. A weird, virtual hat-tip to all the strangers who made the internet such a wonderful, addicting place for me. Oh silly anonymous people, how you've all changed my life in some way or another. Sometimes I think it's weird that I miss some of these people more than I do people I've actually met and gone to school with. But then again, people I've gone to school with left me with a shit load of anger issues. Ha!

So.

Hey internet, you wonderful thing. Here's a message. It'd be nice if you could get it delivered for us.

Dear Ashgard and Sphyra, our lovely lovely duckies. 

We do miss you terribly. Mouse still has her old email address, Quincey too. It'd be nice if we could talk again one of these days. Like I said - we miss you terribly. We have proper internet connection now! So we won't make you leech stuff for us anymore :p

Quincey is getting married! Did you ever think you'd see the day? Ha! And Mousey really wishes she could send you birthday presents, like you did for her. There's still a wrapped-up unsent DVD waiting for an address in her cupboard. :')

Much love, Mousey and Quincey.

psstt..

Took this picture from Postsecret. I haven't visited that site in years. I used to go every week, awaiting new anonymous secrets that I could relate to, I stopped because the secrets were always the same type after a while. (But yes, I'd run away with you.). I used to have a whole folder of 'secrets' from Postsecret saved up in my computer, thinking that one day I'd print them all out and use it as wallpaper for one of the walls in my house. (But then you'd know they were all about you.)

There is no point to this post. Really. I just wanted to share that one particular 'secret' I found today.

Seriously. Didn't we say we'd run away together? Call me.

silly

I have work, but instead I'm reading a shitload of things I should not be reading, knowing full well that my emotions are rather easily swayed and unstable when it comes to well written prose and angst. Because holy crap, when the hurt is good, and I feel like crying - all is well with the world.

My weakness for fiction will someday be my undoing.

I like happy stories, I like fluff - the easy (love) stories which flows without much resistance, I like it when a story feels like a perfect summer day - just warm enough to leave you with the fuzzies.. But when something leaves me shaking and torn and so utterly forlorn.. *fans self* I love sad stories. I really do. Angry stories too. I like, like, love. I love unresolved endings, characters left wondering, with closure being a vague concept for silly people who can't handle the hurt, and wanting to slam my laptop because you can't do this to me! What happens next!? Stories left not quite finished.

This is probably why I spend too much time on the internet.

I must stop reading. Work awaits.

Fuck work, I need more stories.

early mornings always leave me rather woozy

Fact 1: Jakarta is ugly. It's too crowded and too polluted. A little too depressing, and a little too frustrating to be called anything other than a mess. And just.. it's too much.
Fact 2: If I could, I'd move away.

Fact 3: I'm a little in love anyway.

It's the way the city wakes up. All moody and unpredictable.

There are times the day starts with a fight. Golden rays rudely invading my room, abrupt and so completely unwelcome. The heat like an angry strike, too much for my sleepy skin to handle and just plain irritating. Fuck you Jakarta, why are you so happy today? The sudden hustle and bustle of the hated city life. Trudging along amongst irritated honks and death glares of fellow drones marching to their individual hells.

But then days like today make me think that hey.. You're all kinds of awesome darling. Lazy and reluctant like the embrace of a lover too soon separated. Sweet and slow, trails of yellows and blue seeping through a dull grey sky. Buildings standing tall, like zombies unsure of what to do. And just when you think the quiet is too much, the silence is broken by the occasional motorcycle or the shout of a street vendor offering hot, steamy, delicious rice congee.

A cup of coffee by my side, driving through the still empty streets, navigating through familiar roads.. I find myself thinking that even hell would have it's own legion of admirers.

I love you (for now) Jakarta, you ugly fucker.

I don’t have trust issues!

.. I just have issues.

Aha. Ahaha. Ahahaha.

Today’s random musing is brought to you by a random rant-y journal entry from back in 2006 when an ex of mine pointed out that I have trust issues, and I got really pissy. I don’t, by the way. Not more so than the average person, imho..

People form their opinions and perceptions of you based on the most random things, and you form your own opinion of what YOU are like based on the way you want to be seen.

I think I’m geeky, very bookish, and somewhat shy. This is because I think geeks are cool, words mean the world to me, and people scare me. But I’ve been told that although I have many interests that could be classed as ‘geeky’, I am in fact – not really all that geeky. The bookish thing people pick up on quickly enough, as I usually have a few books lying around, and I really am obsessed with words (English words to be precise..).. But the ‘somewhat shy’ bit makes people laugh. At my face. Loudly and obnoxiously.

Somewhere along the way, I’ve found it easier to talk to strangers, although they still terrify me. I can do the whole ‘small talk’ thing no probs, and my smiling-like-a-serial-killer-whenever-introduced-to-new-people thing has all but dissapeared. I attribute these changes to my super cool friends who like to drag me out to meet THEIR super cool friends. Although I still get anxious, and awkward, I guess ‘somewhat shy’ needs to be struck out of the list of words I currently use to describe myself.

Changing my own perceptions about myself is one hell of a difficult thing to do though, I have so many hang ups on things I thought were ‘not cool’ but it turns out I have to do them today, or now that I have become That-Person-I-Would-Have-Avoided-A-Million-Years-Ago, it’s a bit hard to say to myself ‘it’s okay, you’re still you..!’. As hard as it is to slap myself awake, trying to change other people’s perception of me is double-y hard. In fact, double it, square it, and times it by a million, and you’re still nowhere near close to how hard it is. Especially amongst people who grew up with me. People who saw me at my worst, and at my best, and think that they know – at heart – what I’m like.

I think I’ve all but given up on pointing out to cerain people that I’m not an opinionated 18 year old anymore (still opinionated, but not 18.. So should maybe hopefully kinda maybe know better..)

So.. Trust issues? This doesn’t seem to have much to do with the post, and truthfully – it doesn’t.. The random observation from the past triggered an hour long contemplation (in the toilet no less), and I’ve concluded the one thing that remains true from back then till now is – I don’t give a flying f***. 

;P

Whaddap ma hommiiiieeesss!

Said in my accent, it sounds kinda.. off.

Anyhoo.

Relaxing on a gorgeous Saturday morning with a steaming mug of hot cocoa. Wish I had something stronger to lace it with. Mmmm.. *cough* Where was I? Oh yes. Sun. Sun is shinning all bright and pretty, the water in the pool is glistening deliciously, and it's just begging me to come on and take a dip. And where am I? I'm blogging in my parent's air conditioned room, because I really don't want to go to my untouched, super duper messy, shipwreck of a room.

Why am I blogging?

Because apparently I don't do enough writing at work.

No that's not it..

Because I can..! I'm reveling at the luxury of being able to do what I want to, when I want to. Oh the joy of weekends! That, and I have a laser-tag game to get to in about an hour or two. Baby cousin's birthday! I say 'baby', she's 10.. And she's turning into quite the little terror. I love her to bits, but I didn't own that much make up till I was.. 11? 12? Haha. I was going to say 15, but then I realised I started to wear nail polish and make up to school everyday when I was 12.. That stopped when I came back to Indonesia *waves fist at oppresive schools around the country*.

So really we're not all that different. But wait! I didn't have two super awesome 20-something cousins when I was her age. Ah well.. Hugs baby girl, you're all grown up..!

I realize I'm rambling.

But Saturdays are warm and soft and safe. You can't help but be a little wistful, and ramble a little, spitting out every single thing you can think of.. And really, this whole writing out my thought as-they-come-by thing is uber nice. Maybe not for those who end up reading it, but certainly for me.

Yes, my thoughts are really quite inconsequential most of the times.

You should feel lucky that I'm just rambling and my brain isn't serving up some inane questions that I have no answers too. It does that a lot. The significance of cheeseburgers in friendship for instance..

No. I won't go there.

I think I shall go forth and shower now.

Ciao! Adieu! Goodbye dear hearts!

Choices

If you lived two lives, not quite understanding which is real.. which would you pick?

- A perfect world with everything you ever wanted within reach, with loved ones expecting nothing from you but your continued happiness or..
- A world where you had to fight for everything, and your failure will result in their suffering..?

Hang on.. I'm not done yet, don't make your mind up yet.

Keep in mind you have to pick one, and in picking one.. you will have to leave the other completely, disappointing the people you leave behind.

Remember - you don't know which world is real.

Yes, I've been watching/reading/thinking too much of scifi and fantasy stuff.

And the mindfuck is supremely delicious.

Gone

They left.

One by one they left. Leaving behind scratches and scraps, remnants of something that was once so beautiful. So perfect.

And here I am. Alone.

Restless but unmoving. A dead weight on the bed as my eyes madly trace imaginary patterns on the white washed walls, desperately trying to focus on one single thing. My hands lay numb by my sides, twitching every so often, wanting.. needing to move.

Nothing is holding me down but I'm paralyzed.

They're gone. The beautiful creations of man that I once happily drowned myself in.

The words are gone, and my thoughts are tangled and caught in a web of confusion, an incoherent mess with no end.

For the first time in so long, I'm alone.

I swear. The words are gone and I'm feeling lonely and somewhat lost. I used to write so much shit and it was all stupid and wonderful and frustratingly addictive. But I can't anymore. And yes, it makes me sad.

Love, love, love comedy

Cowards.
Featuring : Tim Key, Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski and Lloyd Woolf

Wish there were more than 3 episodes. *sigh*

They're not as obviously-funny as The Mitchell and Webb Look (another sketch show from the Beeb), but I love how it makes me suddenly laugh (I'm inclined to think I like Cowards more actually.. *legasp* I still love Mitchell and Webb though!)

So. The Melbourne comedy fest is looming.. and there's about 10 acts I want to go see (among them Jon Richardson! And Garfunkel and Oates! And Adam Hills! And Sarah Millican, and Dead Cat Bounce, and Tim Key, and.. the list goes on..) It really, really sucks. It's only a couple of hours away, and I wish I had money. Money can solve all my problems.

Well. Not all maybe. I doubt it can solve the lack of guys that catch my interest, and it wont stop my cat from presenting me with bits of insect and geckos.. but it may solve my shelving problem. Hmmm. Either way, having some money won't hurt. Haha!

Here's some Garfunkel and Oates to make you (and me!) laugh.



It's quite a sweet song when you think about it. Call it my late Valentines for the internet. Hahaha.