Killing Time

For breakfast this morning I ate five pieces of chicken wings and a huge bowl of pear & mango salad with blue cheese dressing (recipes below) — which was something that Amy and I had when we ate at Alexis last week. I am doing my second laundry load of the day, this time for my jackets and coats, I know common sense would tell me to send these to the dry cleaners but I could not be bothered. I trust Samsung’s fuzzy logic technology will not shred my jackets into little fluffballs. I have cleaned and disinfected the mobile phones and the laptop; shortened the hems of the black pants that I bought last week and sew new,funkier buttons on a couple of shirts; all the leather shoes have been waxed and polished; all I need to do now is change the bedsheets & pillow cases, sweep the room and clean the bathroom then I would be ready for 2007. Who knew welcoming the new year involves so many household chores and not one of them require me to be in a party dress?!

I have finished two of the 6 Murakami books that I bought two weeks ago. One is a collection of short stories called "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" and the other is a book on Murakami by Professor Jay Rubin, a long time fan, collaborator and translator; without whom I would not be able to enjoy this writer’s work today.

Rubin’s book was a huge relief. I have always been bothered by the fact that Murakami’s stories are presented as is - without any tightening of loose ends or explanations. When I read blogs and discussion boards talking about this hidden meaning and that hidden meaning, I feel intimidated. What hidden meaning? I thought it was just a nice piece of fantasy fiction. Or was I wrong? For instance, in the short story about a woman losing sleep and finding her car being rocked back and forth by some unseen intruders: her fears and anguish are real but are there really real people rocking her car? Or is she just hallucinating and losing her mind? It was never explained. Either way, I enjoyed the story for the fear of the unknown, not to find out if she is going to be chopped into pieces or committed into some loony bin. No reason to overthink the situation.

So, when Murakami himself explained that most of the time he writes without having a specific agenda, and that characters and events were plucked from imagination to push the story along to wherever end it may takes, it gives me great relief to know that I am allowed to enjoy his work purely for the fantasy and mythical elements; not for the so-called "moral of the story". Having loose ends tied up neatly in a parcel is like having the ghosts of your favourite episode of the Twilight Zone exposed for what it really is: a piece of mechanical prop operated by humans. All  the horror and suspense which are the product of your not being able to wrap your logic around mysterious events will disappear. Very clinical. Mucho dissatisfying.

I am spending the first 2 days of 2007 working. January is going to be a very busy month. I could start working right now and finish them in a few hours but I’d rather not. The urge is very strong but I will resist. My new goal is not to slow down, but to spread the work over an acceptable period of time so that the pace is less hectic. There is no way my bp will be allowed to go up to the 180s (183 to be precise) and pop my eyeballs out. No wonder my head felt like it was going to burst — it literally was! The sedatives that are making me sleep 6 uninterrupted hours a night are great but I don’t want to rely on them forever. If you wonder why I don’t reply SMSes at 2am anymore, that’s why. I am dead to the world once those little pills work their magic.

I want to talk a little bit more about work. I am finding that I am liking the role that I have now more and more. The scope is much bigger and harder (and stricter, with us being a newly anointed regional investment bank and all) but as a whole it is a lot more satisfying, especially since I know I have the skills needed to get the job done. When I got the email from Group Finance to say that my Dept Budget was approved without changes, I literally did a little jig around my table because unlike other places that I have been working in before, this would mean that actual money has been allocated for me to do whatever I need to do for 2007 instead of having to beg, plead, rationalise and double or triple rationalise it to 80 different people from clueless secretaries to arrogant bigwigs before I could get my hands on a measly RM800 to pay for the food that we served to our Royal guests. And that was a true incident; preposterous but all so true. I am happy that I get to play the consultant role once again, and that our opinions are sought after and considered when decisions are made. I have been looking for a place to roost and I think I have found it. It is a very hard place to get to, and I know I will be worked harder than I have ever worked before, but I couldn’t have been happier. The only brick wall is the metaphorical one — and if that is the worst thing that could happen then hell yeah bring it on.

If you are looking for resolutions for 2007, here are some suggestions:

1. Read. (Iqra bismi rabbik-allazi khalaq).
2. Watch more TV, but consciously try not to look at the subtitles.
3. Play RPGs. If you have never done so, start now. It’ll teach you a lot about perseverance and problem-solving.
4. Drink less coffee. Trust me, calling yourself a "coffee addict" is not cool especially if you can’t function without 20 pots of coffee a day. It just makes you dysfunctional.
5. Get comfortable shoes. Fashion be-gone.
6. Stop yearning for a soulmate (if you haven’t found the other half).
7. Stop trying to change him/her into a soulmate (if you are saddled with another half).
8. Exercise more patience with waiters who mixed up or forgot your orders. They are limited by their experience and circumstance. You’re the more privileged one so act like one. After all it’s just food.
9. Laugh as loudly as you want. Why should you care about what people at the next table think? They are not in charge of your happiness meter. You are.
10. Lie about one or all of these: dress size, weight, age, how much you hate chicken skin, or how much you love vegetables and exercising.

2007 here I come.

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Ijah’s Hi-calorie Pear & Mango Salad With Blue Cheese Dressing
Butter Salad
Fresh Basil
Fresh Red Basil
One ripe Pear, deseeded and sliced
Half a mango, cubed
Walnuts (or cashews, whatever you can get your hands on)
Blue cheese
Mozarella cheese, drained and clumsily halved with your bare fingers
Olives, pitted
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and pepper to taste

• Toss everything in a large, chilled bowl. Best eaten while reading a thrashy tabloid magazine.

If you do it right, it’ll look something like this:

Fried Chicken Wings
Flour
Salt & pepper to taste
Curry Powder or Paprika - whatever is your poison
One egg, beaten
Milk

• Simmer chicken wings in milk til it comes to a gentle boil. Drain.
• Put the flour and seasoning in a ziploc bag. Drop in chicken wings and shake the bag.
• Coat floured chicken wings with beaten egg, dump again into ziploc bag and shake.
• Shake off excess flour then deep fry in clean vegetable oil till golden. Put on rack to cool.

OR: just buy a bag of Ayamas Drummets and be done with it.

The day before Christmas, I went down with fever and flu. This is the first case of the year, and came when I was so close to having a flu/fever-free year too. In early May I had a bout of nausea that lasted almost two weeks but that was attributed to the raw ox tongue that I ate during an ill-advised but adventurous dinner. Nothing that a Motilium (free ad) couldn’t cure.

I woke up at 2.46am in the morning with a scratchy throat and mucus running down my face. I took a Zyrtec (another free ad) and then went back to sleep knowing that I would wake up with a fantastic headache and stuffy nose. At 4pm the fever broke so I woke up and took a long shower. At 7.30pm I went out to have dinner at Black Canyon Coffee before malaise took over rendering me absolutely useless for the rest of the night, so I went home and got into bed.

I wore a Versace Jeans Couture top and an el-cheapo black jeans. Let me tell you: there is absolutely no difference between wearing the ridiculously pricey top and one that cost me RM5 at the pasar malam. The Versace top did not complain that it was paired with a no-name jeans. I didn’t look any thinner. The only difference, as far as I could tell, is that my wallet is few hundred ringgit lighter.

I  remember an episode of Sex and The City where Jack Berger was told to buy a Prada silk shirt. He looked at the price tag and yelped "Does that come with a house?". The shop assistant protested "Yes, but you will wear this forever."

If only you could go through the rest of your life wearing the same burgundy shirt over and over again til the day you cross over to the great beyond…. Plus, wearing the same shirt countless times, even if it IS a Prada, will only make you look cheap - which is exactly the thing you try to avoid when you buy the Prada at the first place.

Who are we kidding, no?

There is a girl in my office that is an absolute fashionista. Carrie Bradshaw has nothing on her. Everything about her screams expensive, from the lipstick that she puts on her voluptuous lips to the chic belts she wears around her 25" waist. I hitched a ride in her car once and her trunk was full with shoe boxes from big names, so big that the value of the shoes alone is probably 3 times her monthly salary.

Unsurprisingly, the rumour mills work overtime when it comes to her. People speculate that she has her lips done and that she has a generous, erm, ‘benefactor’ to help her with her expenses. No one would entertain the thought that maybe this girl is simply a person who spends all her salary and bonuses and savings on expensive clothes. I mean, I spend about RM500 a month buying books and magazines alone. That same RM500 could have easily gotten me a decent Armani top. RM3000 can certainly get me more Armani tops although it means I will be reduced to drinking plain water and eating one Papa Roti Bun every day for the rest of the month. It’s all a matter of choice really. I am sure many can’t imagine spending RM500 every month on books but I do so there you go.

But anyway, I can’t help but wonder about all these girls who wear DKNY diamond bracelets and Guess baguette bags, yak on the latest Nokia or Treo (or whatever phone model that is trendy that month) and compare war stories about getting that last pair of Christian Louboutin or Jimmy Choos.  Mind you, I am no fashion moron. I harbour dreams of owning a Tag Heuer Aquaracer and a Tiffany Atlas Ring just as much as the next tai-tai. But to spend that much energy and effort on making sure you are garbed head to toe in expensive acronyms is just, well, exhausting. Isn’t it saner to choose an article of clothing (shoes, earrings, silk underwears, whathaveyous) simply because it looks good on you? It must take a really strong will  and even stronger stomach (since you will be fasting for the rest of the time to fit into those tiny clothes) to be able to part with several thousand ringgit of  one’s hard-earned moolah every month to satisfy these fashion cravings.

As my Versace Jeans Couture top would attest to: it is all in the head. No one else cares. Not even your best friend. Unless her name is Victoria Beckham.