7 posts tagged “sad”

The Chinese value filial piety greatly. Turning back on your parents is something you go to hell for, and there's some appropriate punishment for it, something like being trapped in an old folks' home for all eternity until you learn to like it. I don't really know, I'm just guessing.

But what's particularly amusing is the supposedly inspirational stories we come up with to convince children to be good to their parents. And I'm telling you, that shit is just evidence that we had really dumb people in China once upon a time.

There's one about this boy who, in order to protect his dad from a swarm of marauding mosquitoes, took off all his clothes and let the little fuckers bite him all over, so that they would be sated on his blood and leave his father alone. Seriously, if I had a kid like that, I'd cry. With sheer disbelief that somehow none of my brain cells made the transition. I suppose it's sweet, but honestly, you couldn't come up with a better idea? Like closing the fucking door?

If that was bad, that's because you haven't heard of the other dude. The one who put on a deer pelt, snuck up to a female deer, and milked her. If your mom had a sudden craving for milk, what would make make you think that molesting deer would be a good way to get her some? What the fuck is wrong with cows? What the fuck is wrong with going out to buy her a quart?

In comparison, this other dude who washed his parents' shit off was a much better show of filial piety. Practical, an act of love and care, with good sense. Of course, this is probably where I find out something truly screwed up, like he did it with his tongue or something. It's not, but my faith is quite shaken right now.

I try to be filial to my parents, I do. Mom told me Dad was home sick today and I bought him a bowl fish noodles for dinner. Unfortunately, like the dumbass kids before me, I demonstrated sheer emotion and absolutely no brains and didn't call home to see if he wanted anything to eat first. I can't make a joke here, I'm worried because he didn't get up to eat it; he was that groggy. Hopefully it's just the medicine.

I've never been a daddy's girl. Our relationship has been, at best, civil. I love him, and I know he loves me, but we will remain stoically silent about it till the end. Ours is not the sort of heart-warming father-daughter relationship with profound moments of emotional closeness. At best, our attempts to convey our affection are almost cavemen-like; he'll present me with some odd trinket, I show up unannounced with fish noodles.

But it doesn't stop me from being worried sick that Dad is not himself. A few months back, he developed this strange habit of falling asleep all around the house. At the coffee table, on the couch, on the toilet bowl, while smoking, while eating peanuts, while reading the papers. It didn't bother us so much because we figured he was just being eccentric, or passive aggressively trying to get Mom to go to bed earlier.

Then he started to act a little weird. He'd wake with a start, see me and ask if I was going out, when I'd come home, showered, and was heading to bed. He fell off the bed when he was sleeping, not just once, but twice. Cracked his head against the cabinet on the way down and bashed his ribs against the wall. Thankfully, he had nothing but some bruises to show for it, but it still scared the crap out of me.

So tonight, seeing him with those sunken, listless eyes, I felt fear. He told me he had run out of the sleeping pills he has to take to sleep and hadn't had any shut eye for the past two weeks, which is why he'd run himself into the ground. It doesn't help that he'd been working full shifts, from 9am to 10pm, everyday for the past two weeks.

I'm praying it's just nothing more than that. That the horrible part of me that knows him all too well is right and that he's just playing things up to get attention. Please let that be it.

And we're not talking about the Grand Canyon either. America may have its credit crisis, but that's not the topic of my post.

With the fact that a number of my friends know of this blog and the fact that I do have about 10 to 20 people visiting this blog everyday, I've begun to censor myself. I've even made an effort to cheer myself up, to not blog about the things that upset me. But you know what? I'm entitled to days when I'm feeling shitty. Heck, I'm entitled to feeling shitty. I suppose it is my fault that I don't develop my friendships enough that I can just talk about my upset feelings at length with other people and just let my words evaporate into the air, which is why I turn to my blog to release it all. And to be honest, I cannot be arsed to go look for another blog to keep things a secret anymore.

So if you aren't happy about what I have to say, I'm sorry. If you read this and realize it's you I'm complaining about, please understand that it's not public humiliation I'm after, or I would have put your name, photo and everything up. It's really just the lack of courage on my side to bring it all up face to face. I guess because I don't know how to, and because I'm afraid of what the reaction might be. In this way, I get it all out, you know what I'm feeling, and you can take some time to go figure out how you want to respond. Or not. We can always just pretend nothing happened and go on as normal. Whatever works.

Let's begin with the most recent. I was blamed for an accident, where I was supposedly talking and distracted the driver. I don't even know how to continue with this paragraph. But I walked away feeling numb. I guess it would be normal to feel indignant about being blamed, but the other party was so angry and so upset that I couldn't help but feel guilty about it. It reminded me a little of the days when I was still a child and my dad would be angry with me over something or another and would give me long long lectures in which he made me feel worthless with his disappointed scowls, and I'm just standing there with the tears streaking down my face and completely bewildered about what exactly I did wrong.

I applied for a job but haven't heard any news although it has been about a week. To be honest, I'm not sure I want the job either. To be honest, at the moment, I just want to coop myself at home and veg out, since everything I touch seems to turn into shit anyway. Even if I get the job, they'd most likely fire me after my first quarter there since I don't have a big network of people to sell to and I don't know anybody worth knowing and I'd just have to pay them the bond back.

Which would have been nicely covered by this little part-time job I was working at, except instead of five days, they only used me for three and a half. And of course, they only let me know at the very end of day three they wouldn't be using me anymore, and I had to ask them pointedly about it to get a nonchalant head-shake. Fuck you, stupid zhap zheng bitch. Would it have been that difficult to just open your mouth and say, "Thank you for your hard work, but we won't need you here tomorrow."?

This, after three days of standing in four-inch heels, not having dinner, not being able to sit much, and having to make small talk with bloody irritating rich people who look at you like you're a particularly amusing animal. Of having to deal with indecisive, disorganized organizers. Of having to put up with unfair treatment just because I'm not six feet tall and weigh 40 kilos. Of not knowing whether my pay is even coming to me at all.

And then, the kicker, getting a call at 4pm on day four and being told to go back to work for half a day.

It was, in essence, like my party girl job. And just like those times, it wasn't easy having the income disparity rubbed in my face. Just like that time when I went to Elton's ex-boss' house for his funeral mass and had to leave after that to sell beer at some seedy pub. The rich don't respect people unless they too, are rich. And I was forcibly reminded that I wasn't one of them, then and now. It's not a nice feeling when people talk over your head. When they speak of people and things they have in common and you are not privy to. When they speak in a language you barely understand, although they are more than capable of speaking English.

I remember once, after I'd stopped working as a party girl, we went to a pub and there was a girl there selling shots. I chatted with her and helped her out by getting the group I was with to buy a shot each from her. While we weren't rich, we weren't poor either, and we were doing shots and spending quite a bit on drinks anyway. One of the women in the group kept giving the girl dirty looks and telling her then fiancé to get the girl to go away. I didn't understand her hostility; she parties a lot, so encountering these shot girls must be pretty normal. She couldn't possibly have been threatened by this skinny young girl with badly fitting boots. I mean, she used to be a model. So why?

More importantly, did she feel that way towards me, since I too, used to be in those boots? It's not fun working in a job where you get snubbed by those you work for and shunned by your peers. So what if the money is good if you have no one to go out with? It's easy to say that you envy me for the easy money since all I supposedly do is just stand around, look good and talk to people. I guess it would work out fine if I were stupid enough and shallow enough that I don't even realize that I'm nothing more than an entertaining creature, like a pet dog that does tricks. What a pity I'm blessed with not enough looks and too much pride. Life would be much easier if I were some bimbo with a pretty face and big tits and no qualms about being together with a guy for his money.

I recently found out that a friend had a birthday party, but I wasn't invited. It was pretty disturbing that a while back, his girlfriend had a birthday party, but I wasn't invited, even though I'd met them earlier that day. I figured I wasn't as close to her, so I suppose it sort of made sense. But he chose not to include me in his. I guess since most of our mutual friends are no longer in the country, that might be why. But it still hurts, because I never fail to ask him to attend mine. Perhaps I'm disapproved of by someone in his life. Perhaps he's afraid I'd criticize his friends. I don't know. I'm not sure I want to know. Actions speak louder than words and it feels shitty that someone you thought was your good friend would leave you out of his big day. It doesn't really make it easier to see all the photos of the happy shiny people.

But I guess we grow up, pair up and go our separate ways. I just figured that at the very least, someone could have told me if I'd fucked it up, if I'd done something wrong to destroy the friendship. But instead I'm just left aside and forgotten while they go on traipsing on their merry way, chronicling their life without me in a gallery of photos. Overdramatic? Yeah. I'm just in a shit place right now and it hurts to look at happy people.

What else, what else? I think that's about it for now, my litany of things that make me sad. Stop whining, woman. Move on. Well, now I can, now that I've let it out. I don't make me sad. You make me sad.

I went to watch 12 Lotus with Kym yesterday and, once again, bawled my eyes out just as I did last year when we went to watch Royston Tan's 881. I'm a complete, utter and total sucker when it comes to sad stories set to tragic music, and 12 Lotus is about as tragic as Hokkien songs go. He probably saw everyone crying buckets when the girls sang the song in 881 and decided to make a movie revolving around that song. Jerk.

Warning, some spoilers ahead, but I know all you lousy kantangs probably aren't going to watch it anyway because it's so below you. Whatever, be as banana as you like, it's a fucking good show, and if you don't watch it just because it's not from Hollywood and doesn't star big names or because it uses a lot of, gasp, Hokkien and that's so crass, it's your own loss. But in case you guys do go and watch (perhaps shamed into supporting local films or stunned by how much I loved it), I put the detailed spoilers in black font, so you need to do the highlight with mouse thing to see what I wrote.

It moved me so much, after getting back from a crazy day and night out with Kym, I couldn't sleep because I was so filled with frustrated injustice over Lotus' fate. In case you don't understand a word of Hokkien and can't understand the subtitles, the movie isn't a direct "translation" of the song, which is about a hostess of the shady "midnite lounge" sort forced to sell her body by her evil stepmom.

The movie is about a getai singer who keeps getting abused by the men in her life. Her father beats her (and fuck man, watching the whipping scene with that fucked up line made me sooooo angry I had to remind myself the guy's just acting and not go stalk him at Caldecott Hill and sock him one in the balls; "You know why.") and gambles away all the money she earns from singing. If that's not enough, he pockets $10,000 from this getai singer and basically sells his daughter off to sing with her. But this fucker turns out to be a con man who's trying to trap her in a situation where she has no choice but to sleep with this triad boss (who he is actually working for) to save his sorry ass.

The part that got to me the most was after she knelt down, kowtowing profusely to the gangsters who barged into her house to stop them from beating her boyfriend up, she agreed to go with them, knowing full well what lay in store, and she went over to that fucker, smoothed his hair, and said, "You stay at home and wait for me. I'll buy supper back for you."

KANNINABUEHCHAOCHEEBYE CAN???!?!?!?!?!!! I wanted to go and set fire to the screen I was so fucking angry.

I guess I should be happy that Royston Tan revealed that the jerk lied to her before that scene, so it's easier to focus my anger.

So after the traumatic events, Lotus goes completely mad and relives the nightmare every night, refusing to step out of the house for fear of the bad people outside. And despite it all, she's managed to delude herself into a happy place. Until another man comes to her door, and he looks exactly like the fucker who cheated her so many years ago. And the sad story happens again.

Thing is, the second time round, the con man does it because he's desperate for money, being conned himself by this woman into a truly fucked up situation. It makes it slightly less evil, but wah piang, I finally understood the phrase tui sim kua. You really feel like pounding your chest so that it somehow alleviates the pain within. And it's so fucking sad because in her madness, she thought it was him, but in a moment of lucidity, she realizes he isn't. But despite it all, she still let him into her life (he sought refuge to avoid his debtors), and took care of him. But the only thing she wouldn't give him, he had to take, believing the words of a mad woman that some cheap ass trinket was actually worth tens of thousands of dollars.

The story struck a chord deep within me because it's one of my biggest fears. That I would love someone so much and give up so much of myself to come back and find out that the sacrifice was for nothing. And it really got to me because in the end, it ended up as rape anyway, so why didn't the gangsters just grab her and rape her? Why put her through that sort of psychological trauma? It's just fucking cruel. Raping someone isn't the sort of thing that drives a person mad. Realizing that you've been betrayed by someone you loved and trusted and was willing to sacrifice your body for is.

I guess if nothing else its a cautionary tale for women everywhere. Never trust men. As the abusive father says, "Bo ai, ma na wu tiah, bo tiah, ma na wu ai." Without love, where got pain, without pain, where got love? Good point indeed. Whether you're male or female, love is always the thing that gives you the biggest highs and lows. Like some kind of fuck you up fairy dust, a highly addictive cocktail of uppers and downers. Mom really was right, ask not what you can do for your man, but what your man can do for you. And until you're very certain he's not just some evil conman out to ready your pussy for some fat triad boss, do not even think about letting your guard down.

Don't ask me. Ask Lotus.

I am blogging this from my brand spanking new computer, where 1280 x 1024 is the largest possible resolution you can set it to, thanks to the much more advanced graphics card. Unfortunately, on my lao pok screen, things seem so very tiny.

Which is not a bad thing, since now I can see the whole of this page with no need to scroll up and down. My computer is so quiet compared to the old one that the sound of my typing is all I can hear. Best part is, it's so pretty! It's mainly white, with a pink front, and the DVD writer extends sideways, because the chassis is quite narrow.

I feel quite proud of myself, really. I went to pick it out myself, paid for it myself, lugged it home myself (ok, Dad drove the car, but I carried it from the shop to the car at the taxi stand because he was too cheap to pay the $2 for ERP, then carried it home), detached my old CPU, fixed the new CPU, removed my old CRT monitor to attach Elton's old LCD monitor, realized he didn't give me the cable, removed the LCD, fixed the CRT, set up the wireless internet, downloaded about seven different necessary software and patched them all, ALL BY MYSELF. I am not only entitled to be proud of myself, I am entitled to my own mini parade. Who needs testosterone? And mind you, I did all that and didn't even chip my nails.

And of course, just because the CPU, the mouse and the keyboard are pink and white isn't enough. I made the GUI pink too. Unfortunately, it seems as though Microsoft doesn't allow the grey colour of certain bars to be changed. Irritating. I even changed the font for the menu bars to this funky one that resembles the typeface you see on old school refrigerator doors.

Not only did I fix up my computer, I even found time to arrange a dinner date for eight. Well, seven. That, and go for two interviews rolled into one.

Thanks to Albert, my friend from my old job, I was interviewed for a PR job at the company he's working at, which may be small, but has some of the most coveted clients in the industry. That was more of a by-product; the more pressing one was a three-day gig that apparently is going to pay a ridiculous sum of money. I can't quite believe the figure, and I'm waiting for them to say, "Sorry, that's the budget for all you nine people, so actually your fee is this pathetic amount." Still, I don't mind. It's a cushy job, and apparently they're going to give me a made-to-measure uniform complete with accessories of the bling bling kind. That is, if they choose me for the gig.

Talk about serendipity. They asked if I could start in September for the PR job, which is a little earlier than my self-imposed two month break is, but when was the last time someone called you at 1pm to ask you to come in for a 5pm interview and randomly a job just falls into your lap based on nothing more than your friend's recommendation and a couple of blogs on your Facebook? (No, really, Albert showed them my Facebook blog as "writing samples", disregarding the fact that I complained endlessly about my old job and there's a picture of me with fairy wings there.) I just gotta check in with Guan Yin Ma, see what She advises, before going ahead with this.

What? At least She has a pretty clear method of communication. I can be pretty blind to signs.

The good points of this company are 1) they've got a casual dress code, 2) the boss seems like a chill person, 3) Albert's working there, 4) working hours are 10am to 6pm, weekends off, 5) it's on the train line that services my estate, so straight train to work. My job would be to write, which I'm good at. The bad? A daily stair climbing session with a massive flight of 130 steps. On the bright side, I'd have buns of steel at the end of it.

Well, so far everything's tentative anyway, so no point counting eggs that are still inside the damned chicken.

Speaking of jobs, I've been reading this book called Sugarbabe, the supposed real-life account of some kiss-and-videotape-and-put-on-You-Tube girl called Holly Hill. Ok, so she didn't You Tube it, but she wrote a freaking book about it.

The blurb goes, "Holly Hill (pseudonym) gave up her job at the behest of her wealthy boyfriend - and then found herself dumped and penniless. After spending six weeks in bed pining for her lost love, she was encouraged by a friend to be 'open-minded' about her career choices - and ended up placing an online ad for a sugar daddy. She received an almost overwhelming response from all sorts of men, but most of them were married men whose wives had lost interest in sex. As Holly interviewed the men and settled on a candidate, she decided to record what happened next. Those almost-daily observations became a journal documenting Holly's extraordinary experiences - not just the men she meets, but the things she finds out about marriages, in particular, and what men need from them. Sugarbabe is her account of the emails and encounters with the applicants for the role, and the five men she eventually chooses (not all at the same time!). It is by turns funny, enlightening, challenging and thought-provoking."

So far I'm about a third through, and I'm scarily not as disturbed as I should be. Although she's charging the men $1000 a week for her company, her role seems more like a psycho-therapist with benefits, free parking and good food. The sex seems more like a bonus than the main aim for the men, who are these high-flying, Blackberried, Beemered beings from another world. They seem to go to her for sanctuary more than anything else.

Basically she's like the perfect girlfriend. The kind who doesn't throw temper tantrums because it's a job for her, and you are giving her cash upfront.

It does make you wonder where you draw the line. If I were dirt poor and single, would I look into becoming a professional mistress? The socially acceptable answer would be no, but the truth is, it's not really that impossible to imagine. I'm attractive, witty, sociable, and a damned good actress. If needed, I can muck it out, or go Hepburn-esque with pearls and Dior. Any man would be proud as heck to have me on his arm to show off. So if straits were dire and I literally had to sell myself like that, I'd do it, but you better believe it's at a premium.

Break any normal relationship down and you'll notice it's still a transaction. I give you this, you give me this. I give you love, you give me love. I give you sex, you help me smack cockroaches and fix things around the house and do other manly stuff. A housewife is like a mistress, except with the legalisation of a marriage contract and thus not liable to keep a happy face 24/7 or agree to sex when asked. Heck, once you squeeze a kid out, you can close shop, sit around, go Tanglin Club with your kakis and let your home turn into a sty if you so like. If he tries to divorce you, it doesn't bloody matter, because you'll still keep getting money anyway.

I can sense the guys cringing now. SCARY ISN'T IT?!

Suddenly a mistress isn't so bad anymore, is she? Sure, it's cash terms, and your bank account has to be this big to qualify, but the terms are clear, and if you're not satisfied with the service, you can just up and leave, no guilt, no fear, no long drawn out drama. She might secretly scorn your giant pot belly, your balding head, your slobbishness, your BO or any of your other fucked up physical or mental problems that make other women avoid you, but with you paying for everything, she's still going to tell you you're her Brad Pitt. Girlfriends and wives always want to change you, because there are just some things about you that can improve, but your sugarbabe won't, because so long the money keeps coming, you can rot for all she cares.

The main reason that's stopping me from making money in an unconventional way is Elton. The second biggest reason is because I've never been able to fake an emotion and keep on faking it. Eventually it becomes real. Which was probably why my juniors ran screaming from me when I acted as Medea in JC. Granted, if I had to pick a sugar daddy I'd definitely look for a Pierce Brosnany one rather than a Marlon Brandoish (in his much later years) one, but I just know I'd most likely be able to lull myself into thinking I love the guy, then one day stare at his flabby wrinkled butt as he walks to the loo and regret it completely and there goes my pay cheque.

It's easy for guys to point the finger and say that women are evil manipulative creatures who just want to use them. Fuck that. As though they don't do the same thing to us. There's a guy I know of who still sleeps around after he was married for less than a year. The way he talks about women and the way he mass propositions the receptionists at his office (I swear, he probably has a SMS template for it in his phone) makes it very clear that women are nothing more than disposable fuck dolls or teddy bears to him. There for comfort, there for fucking, then shoved aside while he does his manly stuff of earning money and proving he has a big dick with his big bank account. It's so bloody obvious he married his wife because she's fat and ugly and needs him sooooo much more than he needs her, so even if he gets found out, she won't have the guts to leave him anyway. And he's not alone. There are so very many motherfuckers like him.

I should know. I've been hit on by married men before. Unsurprising in my job as a party girl, fucking traumatizing when I was just a blur little intern with the hand of the second banana of the company on my ass. And they always give you the same stupid story. You want sex all the time? Marry a nympho. Or actually make her come when you fuck.

By the end of my stint as a party girl, I lost almost all faith in men, relationships, commitment and the lot. Why tie yourself to someone when the hurt can be so very bad? When betrayal seems to come so easily to men? They'll sweet talk you and tug at your heart strings and make you feel so very sorry for them, until you remember that there's some poor woman out there who doesn't have a clue, and that this man made a vow that he didn't have to, and is going to tell you he has some terminal but non-contagious disease if that's what it takes to get in your pants.

All these bloody losers. If you're that horny, then don't marry. Don't commit. Don't be in a relationship. Go on out to Clarke Quay or Boat Quay or Geylang if need be and have one night stands all you want. Except they can't. They're not attractive enough that women will throw themselves at their feet, so they cling on to the one foolish girl who loves them and is faithful to them and try their luck behind her back. Cowardly pencil-dicked losers. Then they manage to fuck some pocked marked whore with cauliflowers on her bits and they bring it home to their partner and infect her with it.

It makes a girl want to use men the way men use us. Out in the open, clearly for money only, obviously whispering lies, sweet lies in your ears to get your wallet wide open and your money out.

Sorry for all the cussing. I'm just so disillusioned.

I'm heading over to the control centre in a while to hand in my resignation letter. I put it off by two days not out of fear, but out of a need to maintain my last flight to Auckland, which I have not been to.

And since I'll be out and about today, getting my hair cut, I thought I'd just take the car for a spin, since that usually makes me feel good. Yeah, that's probably going to be a new motto; do the stuff that feels good, leave off those that don't.

But what happens when you can't really just quit something that has made you cry, made you upset, made you angry? Technically you have a choice in everything. I could go stay in a budget hotel until my parents get the hint that I want them to leave me alone. But it's the sort of thing that results in an estranged relationship. I do want to talk to them at some point in time, just not about what I want to do with my life, right now.

I'm not that young anymore, but I'm not that old that things are set in stone and I have to give birth NOW before my uterus becomes fossilized. I forget that occasionally. It's sort of what happens when you get stuck in three consecutive long-term relationships. Scary, isn't it, that I've never been single since I was 17. I thought the way forward was the way to go, except that now I realize it isn't, or it isn't yet, anyway. I can wait.

Heck, maybe Mom had the right idea; stay together if you're happy, part if you aren't. I find it amusing how cavalier her attitude is towards relationships, as though she was a much younger, hotter woman with no fear of suitors. She tries to pretend her bravery stems from her lack of need for a man, but the truth is, she needs people, and without them, she's just going to be the miserable person she had been for the last few weeks, stationed on the couch watching bad TV and poking about in my life with no regard for privacy. Just because you're not working doesn't make me your pet project. Go shopping or something. Leave me and my stuff alone until you've got something nice to say that doesn't make me and my decisions seem like crap.

That's probably why so many relationships end up like shit, and families get estranged, because it's easier to just go away than to change people's behaviour. We end up resigned that they're just going to be that way till the day they die and stop being idealistic. It always seems as though we are the ones who have to do the changing, not them. Yeah, well, it works both ways, doesn't it? Just depends on where you're standing. We wait for the One, who's this mythical creature that's just going to complement you in every way just right straight out of the box, no assembly required. The guy who's going to make you feel protected but not smothered, who knows how to touch you right without making you afraid he's going to hurt your delicate bits with all that fumbling, who knows to leave the toilet seat down so you won't fall in. Or the girl who gives you your space but is there for you when you need her, who constantly makes an effort to look good for you but you don't actually see the effort, who never tells you to stop whining and grow up regardless of how fucking useless you are. The One really is just a very very selfless person who allows you to be as selfish as you want to be. It's all about you you you. Your career, your life, your money, your family. He or she is just a nice appendage.

I think for quite a while I thought I wanted to be that appendage. Wouldn't it be nice to be so needed by someone, I thought? I think the truth is that I'm not that selfless. I think I can validate my existence in ways other than being needed by another person. I think perhaps it's not that scary being alone.

I eat when I'm depressed. And from the looks of things, I've been depressed quite a lot recently. The shape of my hips has changed entirely. I now have places I didn't have before. On the one hand it horrifies me. On the other, it's morbidly fascinating, this physical manifestation of my mood, this pasty, flabby fat that screams to the world, "I'm upset and I don't give a fuck about myself anymore!" Or something to that effect. I haven't gained enough weight that it looks obvious, but it is a big difference from two years ago.

So the money is finally in. The stars have aligned. I can basically show up for my next flight, get a nice massage in Bangkok, eat some kick ass Phad Thai, come back and drop off my resignation letter at the desk and say goodbye to it all in two weeks time. The few things keeping me back are:

1. Should I get my two wisdom teeth extracted before I go? It's covered by my dental benefits, so it's free as opposed to a few hundred bucks.
2. Should I wait for my claim for my damaged luggage to come in? It's $200, not that much, but still money.
3. Should I delay for another week, since that will be when I have a week's worth of annual leave? Then, if I can figure out a place to go, I can actually utilize that goddamned free plane ticket I get every year as part of my benefits and go somewhere. The downside being, they'll prorate my pay since I'll be using up all my annual leave for the year but quitting before the year is out, and a trip will mean I'll be spending more money.
4. Hell, should I delay for another month, so I can do the Frankfurt-New York flight on my next roster and go to the States one last time?

It's not a matter of if, but when. And judging by my reaction, I think that would be now.

I've been resisting the urge to blog for...quite a long time now, forcing myself to do other things, like read and sleep. Yeah, that's basically what I've been doing. Mainly because I didn't want to have to censor myself, and I couldn't be bothered to deal with any hurt feelings my words might cause. Yeah, that's right, stone-cold selfish bitch that is me isn't so much worried about hurting feelings but having to clean up the mess afterwards. What? It's not like I've not been on the wrong end of that attitude recently.

People have a tendency to want to fix things. When they encounter unpleasant things, they want to either fix it or make it go away. Well, some things and people just don't work that way. Too fucking bad. What, am I interrupting your regular scheduled programming? Am I interfering in the efficiently run machine that is your life? It doesn't have to be that way. Just say the magic word, and I'll go away.

Look, I don't need solutions, I don't need advice, I don't need rousing, snap-out-of-it pep talks. Not yet, anyway. What I want, in this moment in time, is just some time to cry. When the hell was it taboo to cry? It's like the first episode of Six Feet Under, where the father's funeral is like some sanitized Hallmark moment, with this oversized salt shaker for you to sprinkle soil over his coffin. Is it so very wrong for me to want to react more like the crazy Sicilian women and bawl my eyes out instead?

It's not too weird a comparison, really. It feels like a death. Dramatic? Perhaps. Doesn't stop it from feeling like it. But hey, at least I'm feeling something. Do you know how fucking long it has been since I felt anything? Do you know I've been living the past two, no, past two decades of my life as though I've been in a coma? I go through life feeling so detached from the actions I'm actually taking, I question whether I'm secretly a serial killer who happens to be physically weak and freaked out by blood. I manipulated my ex-boyfriend into breaking up with his previous girlfriend and getting together with me and felt nothing. I then swapped over to my current boyfriend, unceremoniously dumped my ex, and felt nothing. I feel anger, and nothing, and that is all. I want, I need something more, and if it happens to be grief, that's fine, I'll take it. I'll wallow in it, I'll savour it, and then, like all emotions, it'll leave me all too quickly, and I'll be back to nothing.

Is that what you want? That can be arranged. Neat, sanitized little me. Back to nodding my head sympathetically at everyone else's problems. Back to going through like in a coma. Woo.

So I find it hilarious when I get accused of not being strong enough. Oh darling, do you have the wrong end of the rabbit or what? I've been on my own since I was a kid. Dad was too consumed with his own problems, Mom too, and there was no one there for me, so I had to be there for me. I've had two decades of practice. Independence is not the issue here. When was the last time you let yourself feel? Just letting it wash over you and submerge you? Most likely never, because unlike me, you don't have the strength to come back up from it. You're afraid once you let go to the all-consuming depths of depression, you can't come back.

Here's a little secret, I've been there, I've come back, and each time I do, it makes me feel more alive than any lame little diversion people come up with to distract themselves from the pointlessness of it all. I know it unsettles people, because they don't think it's healthy. And because they feel useless, since it's up to me to bring myself back.

But don't tell me that I'm not strong, when you don't have the courage to face your own demons, when you won't even admit that you have a problem hidden deep down. Don't tell me that, when I dare to try to fix it by breaking down completely so I can rebuild myself back up, and you won't even glance at yourself in the mirror and see the truth that you have been hiding a multitude of sadness and frustration. You can't skip the painful parts. Not for me, not for yourself. You're just delaying the inevitable.

I'm not in a good mood lately. Partly because I'm teething. Toothing, rather. My lower wisdom tooth is trying to make its presence felt and succeeding at the task. I'm planning to get it out this Friday so I can skip a whole bunch of flights and spend more days with Elton. Now, I'm starting to question whether it's truly for my own good or just the insanity talking. At the very least, I know I'm going to get it out before I quit the company; it's expensive, getting the tooth out. We're talking at the very minimum a $700 job if I plan to be unconscious to the world when it happens. If not, well, it can be done for free, thanks to my dental plan. What really scares me is the fact that it's going to be surgery, and with a minimum of a five-day MC after that, it's probably going to hurt like hell.

Still, the appointment is made, and the very least I can do is just go for it and see what the verdict is.

At the same time, I also made an appointment to get a consult about my ears for the following week.

I don't know what brought on the sudden self-improvement kick, not sure if I can be bothered to explain it to myself or to anyone else either. I've hated my ears for decades, so it's not a surprise that now I can fix them, I'm going to. As for the tooth, well, frankly, I'm trying to avoid it. So long it doesn't hurt me too much, I don't mind just leaving it in there. The only reason I'm accelerating the process is so I can have more days in Singapore, and the next few flights aren't really that fantastic either.

Do I hate work that much? Yeah.

I'm starting to realize that people just don't get me, even my nearest and dearest. I'm sort of disappointed. Mostly jaded. It figures. Humans are naturally selfish, after all, and empathy doesn't come easy. I just want to go away somewhere where I can be safe and secure. Where I can't be hurt by other people. Maybe work isn't such a bad idea after all. At the very least I can disappear into my hotel room.