Mancrush

So how the fuck you’ve been man. I haven’t seen you for, like what, five years?

There’s a photo of us in London, with it’s old clock in the background. We were overdressed as usual in our shiny red boots. And those Kangols, man. We were rocking in it like it was meant to be rocked: kampung style.

So K, my friend, lemme just have this out in the open: I have a mancrush on you. Not of the gay sort, you follow? We had some great times and I just think that men are allowed to have mancrushes. Like some people have for Lance Armstrong (“Manwhore“, Blair Waldorf) or Khairy Jamaludin (“Mr. Smarty Pants”, the population of Malaysia under 35).

Bunion/bunian

I’m at school. A bunch of sixth formers are talking about invisible apparitions shoving them around and playing tricks on them. Bunians.

I’d just finished invigilating a lower secondary form and walk out to the corridor and see the Senior Assistant and proceed to tell her of the talk about these pesky creatures. She tells me that all of us should start using this new product. Some kind of cream or oil or ointment that would repel the bunians.

I walk downstairs to go to my car which is parked at school front. I am at the back where I meet a friend, Saiful who doesn’t even teach here (I last saw him 10 years ago). I ask for a ride to my car and he obliges. We get into his car (a late model Proton) which then begins to swerve around wildly. As if someone or something else is grabbing the steering wheels. I begin chanting verses.

I’m at home and talking to an unidentified member of the family about the bunian driver. The conversation drifts into another topic: the paranormal history of the house I live in. There is an entry in Wikipedia (searchable by address) about this house, apparently. You’ll find a list of people who’ve died here. I remember trying to avoid reading the entry.

I’m in a room in the house which peculiarly looks like a hostel dormitory, surrounded by family members (again unidentified/unremembered). There is a baby. Maybe a newborn because it is very little and wrapped in a white cloth. I carry the baby ans start to put it back down on the mattress when the people around me warn that it was taking a crap.

It isn’t crap at all. The baby just ‘gave birth’ to another small baby, about a couple of inches tall.

P, my brother comes into the room, picks up the newborn peanut baby and starts to joke nonchalantly with it, putting it against my mother’s earlobes (who’s apparently there all along), as if it was an earring.

I wake up.

Light

So, do I have something to say to you? Maybe not, but a friend is getting married tomorrow.

I went out looking for lights and furniture earlier tonight with my wife. We’ll be moving into our new home soon. So we subject ourselves to market forces pulling us in different directions while trying to keep our funds in check. We certainly don’t have much but I guess it will get us some semblance of the comfort that we think we deserve.

Then dinner at Hai Tian. Some chopped-up pieces of mackarel (I think) stir-fried in soy sauce, garlic and shallots. Kailan in soy sauce and sotong in batter.

We were about to leave when T came. He’s the friend I mentioned. He’ll be a married man tomorrow. I’ll be taking pictures of his wedding. A big honour, because we tight and shit.

So I ordered another bottle of g and the three of us sat and talked. It was gossip but I prefer to call it catching-up.

My wife left after a while. We drove off to another friend’s (WA) place, had a couple of joints on the balcony. Gossiping (catching-up) and cracking jokes and having a good time. Quite a stag party it was. Orange cordial on the back of bobo. Bobo is WA”s car. A blue Persona SE. He was in a pair of flannel boxers. Yup, partay! On the porch and it was drizzling.

On the way home, I took some pictures of light through T’s windshield and my 50mm f1.8.

First Eid Kit.

So, the blog’s been left dormant again. The odd picture post, yeah. But largely ignored. Been pretending I was too busy taking pictures for my other blog, where there’s a lot of err… pictures.

How was your raya? As empty and devoid of meaning as it was for me? Quite difficult to celebrate the triumph of abstinence over consumption when one doesn’t abstain, ever.

I was in the living room that bright raya morning, waiting for some semblance of feeling. An approximation of how raya used to feel like when I was younger. You know, the ghost of joy that wasn’t exactly happiness but made your heart swell up with love and forgiveness. Usually it was strongest during the annual on-yer-knees-asking-for-forgiveness-kissing-and-crying rigmarole. You just knelt and mumbled apologies and usually the tears that came after weren’t feigned. You felt something.

It’s wearing off. There is a noticeable decline in the range of emotions experienced during this most well-meaning of rituals. When I was a kid, I genuinely felt that I wronged my parents and really wanted their forgiveness. For the times I ditched school, or whined or protested or beat-up my brothers or knocked-up a maid. This year I didn’t even bother mumbling out the “Selamat hari raya Abah, mintak maaf mintak ampun, halalkan makan minum Along” and shit.

Not because I haven’t wronged anyone this year. I just didn’t feel like it.

It’s nice to smoke out in the open again, though.

Awan Palsu