Treespotting

on the Royal Wrath

2012-09-08T15:59:00.000+07:00

She wrote back, ending the opening sentence with "nothing particular to say to you right now or perhaps ever about anything you wrote."

You gotta give her credit for being straight for the jugular. Of course, the context was emails and writings and stuff otherwise it wouldn't be in the first sentence.

Princess had always a way for it. To go where it hurts most. I was never sure why that was and had long theorized about it. Perhaps she was abused at young age, or past relationships, whatever. It was like she was instinctively seek out the most vulnerable spot and hit it really hard. Verbal abuse aside, in my experience it was always the one thing that kept our relationship on edge.

It's like when she mailed and said, "I'm only writing because I am trying to be nice."

Well, gratitudes Your Highness, but do one need to assume that you needed a reason to be nice in the first place? Why couldn't she just be nice - instead of trying to be nice. What makes being nice so hard?
I had been madly in love with Your Highness radiance for so many years, I knew she was well willed to be nice.

So in other words, what Princess was really saying was that, "I don't feel like being nice to you."

Like I said, she wanted to hurt. Maybe this came naturally to the female species. I've heard stories about girls with particularly vicious tongues. People often accused me for being vicious, too. It's just generally speaking, there ought to be a reason behind her viciousness. I knew from experience that Her Royal Highness was generous with her temper and not necessarily requiring any reason to be vicious.

Like when she wrote and wished me dead. The timing was impeccable too. I was actually pretty sick and dealing with sick (and later dead) people and reading it in my pocket just felt overwhelmingly stuffy. Her Highness must've known that that sort of things hurt regular mortals.

From her side, she claimed that I was no less forgiving in my vernacular. I said things that were probably best never being said. Sometimes she blamed me for saying things that everyone said. She claimed the fact that I said it to her face hurt, too.

Of course. But she was running around like a groupie. I thought the circumstances demanded that I told it to Her Royal Highness beautiful face. People meet in real life for the sake of going beyond and outside the self humiliating race in competing for who could structure a sentence that hurts the most. Being Her Highness most reliable follower at the time, it was my job to inform her of what the rest of the Court had already known.

Perhaps I was out of line. We could go down to the semantics as to what deserves the heads and what would costs the hearts. I was never much a polite man. It wasn't like she didn't know me or read what I wrote for years. Yet, I could understand that the Princess felt compelled to be mad and angered for such things being said and I was banished. That was reasonable enough.

However, for those incidents - and indeed other frequent encounters where I lost my notorious temper, I would happily accept, if simply because things happened for a reason. There was something that needed to be said and I took it upon myself to be the noise of conscience. Like The Fool.

Very often, and almost always among the bestest ones were the ones where the Princess was simply mad. For no reasons other than she was angry and needed to let up, or whatever was the politically correct word these days for trust fund babies in therapies. She was just angry and took it on me to be the closest target for payback. Wishing me dead and rotten was moderately tempered to some and I feared even going back to the archive. The Court was to forget Her Royal callousness. Classic story for The Fool to never tell.

I asked what happened when she eventually hated me. If maybe there would be a point in the future where she would actually believe the words she was saying. What would happen when she actually want me to die and rot in hell for things she claimed I had done (these were the bits that came with fill-in-the-blank form). What would happened when she started to believe in her own words and actually hated me. Wouldn't that just hurt?

She said she needed to hate me to be able to move to LA. She hated men equally and turned lesbian. I was supposed to understand. It had nothing to do with me. It was about the yellow porsche and away from her parents and her guarded palaces. I reminded her that I was well aware of this because I visited her in Los Angeles and saw first hand what she meant with it. I much preferred that she turned lesbian than pursuing more of the pornographic antics of the life in exile, but it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

The point remained, what happened when she actually hated me and were not playing party tricks for her treasonous life?

She said she knew it wouldn't happen because she was sure that she knew me well enough. She knew I would not believe the words and just put them aside because girls do what they girls do and say what they say and then some. Something like I wouldn't believe the words she said and would always know what she was like and how she was. And know that I wouldn't ever be able to hate her back.

That was a lot of assumption, I said. And it didn't change the fact that it hurts. Sometimes I fear that it would hurt too much. She wanted to stand and watch the bridge burns.

What happened when the bridge finally fell as it eventually will?

on Princess and Cowboys

2012-09-03T12:42:00.000+07:00

She said take it easy, I need some time,
time to work it out, to make you mine
And just when I thought she was comin' to my door
She whispered sweet and brought me to the floor, she said
I'm only seventeen...
~Seventeen, Winger

During her whirlwind visit of the country last month - among other things - Princess managed to call Alice a slut. I could claim at least partial innocence due to being completely knocked out for the most it. I didn't know anything until P told me about it in the car on the way to the airport for her flight back, a few days after the fact.

I asked what possessed her to do that. A fairy trick for the morning glory was one thing, going around calling names to other people was another. She said she was going through my phone looking for the hospital number when she read most of the previous exchanges. She thought she was saying the obvious, good manners are overrated.

She asked why I cared to bother so much with Alice. The experience was certainly not one worth telling anyone about, the stories not worth remembering much and the most obvious one of all, the fact that it was bad shit from the very beginning and it's not like I didn't know what I was dealing with. I didn't know. I pretended like I didn't hear the question. We were sitting in the back of a Mercedez with a driver also pretending his best not to be listening to us in the back. He was an old man, much older now but I guessed he still remembered things. He didn't say anything at all except a hello at the beginning of the trip.

I wondered out loud why she ran with a second rate rock star. It was obvious even then that he wasn't going to be Bon Jovi and she was not fit to be a groupie. But she did it anyway. She said it was Love. Love sort of made it made sense. Like she heard about it in stories and read it in girly magazine and genuinely thought she had found Love. It made sense at the time.

She asked if I loved Alice, making a point about knowing that it never made much sense from the very beginning. There was a reason why I called the experience a Wonderland. I knew I was out of my depth, what with baby talks and all, but I dived along anyway. It was futile. I argued that Wonderland was fun. It was supposed to be fun. Off with her head.

She thought I did, otherwise I wouldn't be upset about the slutty bits. In a common case of denial, I refused to acknowledge that whatever we had was a brief, bad and torrid affair. Princess said that I was being overly romantic and would rather take the whole thing to Wonderland rather than dealing with shit in real life, raising her voice a bit at the last bit, reached to the backseat pocket and put on a pink hat. The old driver glanced at the mirror and caught my eye. Wonderland was supposed to be fun. Slut.

It didn't matter what we did then just as it doesn't matter now. We did everything people in love do. We kissed and we loved. We fucked like rabbits. We played fairies and farmed out the dog house. Lemon got two pairs of pink shoes. We shared hollow promises and whispered words like people in love do. I read them in books too.

How very Indonesian, she said very matter-of-factly. Indonesians are very self conscious about their social status and presentation. Indonesian girls are particularly prone to this behavior and I should've taken the cues from the beginning. I wasn't that stupid. There was a point to the fact I never even got a birthday wish. Not year after year after year. I should've fuckin stopped hoping for it ages ago. But I didn't and expected things to eventually change. For what, or more importantly, why? Hope.

It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness. The Architect said.

By then we were somewhere nearest the highest point of the overpass before the airport. The car was heavily screened and tinted to accommodate her skin sensitivities and the air comfortably cooled but we could almost feel the heat of the city outside. The sun was hot, white, angry almost mad. The traffic stalled and the air thick with poison. I realized we were holding hands across the backseat. Princess was still on her Rock of Ages soundtrack high and put on the music a tip louder to sing along to Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Cowboys are supposed to ride for the sunrise, she said.

Whatever happened to the idea of one way ticket to anywhere, she said. We had this talk, like forever ago, that if neither of us had kids before forty we would plan for a retirement somewhere where the weather is good. That deal was off when mother was sick, I guess. Now Mother wanted to back to her spice islands so as far as travel plan goes, that's next. I wasn't in the best form to make long term plans at the moment. We still had a few years left, I said. Like vampires, mongering in temperature adjusted box under the shade of yesterdays, we would survive a few more years. She didn't mention anything about children.

The sun was brutal outside.

I remember in college when someone wrote the word "twat" on the house next door. This was in the House of Res in Boston but I couldn't remember who was involved. I recalled it was a big deal then. There was a class on the word "slut" in American lit and publication. I was a rather big proponent of desensitizing the language and aggressively deployed this verbal stance in my social interaction. Slut is the new black.

Princess said I shouldn't beat myself over the head about it. Why is a raven like a writing-desk?

on Boats and Beagles

2012-08-13T02:49:00.000+07:00

1800 Posts, according to blogger. Goodness, what a lot of gibberish.

Sometimes I go back to my old posts and read back what shit happened way back when and recall just how different things are today. Pre-birthday blues? Maybe.

Before you ask, What do I want for my birthday?

I want a boat. Not just any boat, but a big enough boat and even better, fast enough. I want to moor somewhere off the coast of a big, big island later and retire (either that or putting my World Domination Plan in motion). I been wanting that boat forever. Now more than ever.

In a dinner conversation somewhere in Jakarta during the holy months, the conversation eventually turned to the higher discomfort of recent Jakarta life. Someone was talking about how much it costs to raise four kids these days. I was really questioning him why have four in the first place, but the point was probably moot anyway. Why indeed.

Olive, somehow reappeared a while bit and asked the question from years ago. She took offense that I never seemed to write about her. 1800 pages worth of gibberish and she was not appropriately mentioned, she argued, it was no way of showing my affection. This is simply not true because a simple search would result differently, but yes. These notes may not represent the most accurate description of what happened during the last several years. For a long list of reasons, many details were kept out from these blogs. People sleep better that way, I think.

I went to the mall the other day. Primarily to go catch a movie but also some walking around and buying presents. Vi actually made sure I have presents for Mother this year. I have a thing for birthdays (I keep missing them, it's legendary. My brain is not wired for regular calendaring). I'm even worse with presents. I should always remember to have something for Mother. So that was a relieve. The rest of you, feel free to bitch. My lil brother is only a day younger so I almost never forgot. I actually forgot my own birthday twice. I'm sure there's a disorder for it.

Somewhere in the same gossipy dinner, someone mentioned that we looked good together. Maybe it was not really obvious that even an Orangutan would look good when paired with but I was nevertheless curious why she thought I looked better with that particular girl than the other. Maybe, I was not particularly lucky in my relationship life, but surely I'm doing better than the other guy with four kids?

Anyway, back in the mall, we saw Batman and I thought it was not really as awesome as people have been describing it around the place. Particularly the twitter people where the newly lit audience have a way to race for the superlatives in description, so Batman was a bit poofmh. But I really liked going to the movie with her and I held her fingers the whole time. I told her that she was the person I went to the movie most for the last few years. I think she looked happy too but I didn't say much.

Vivian was also massively pissed off with many of my scenic literary route. For maximum ambiguity, some stories were picked up from different places, she was not very pleased with the collage. She said that these posts would not accurately depict her life. Of course that holds very true. It is afterall, my own blog and I could name you whatever I like. I invented words before.

I do go back to my notes, the diary I kept in my emails and journals and occasionally post old stories. You don't tell a story until you know how it ends, said in the Council. Some stories don't end, I guess. Sometimes, when shit happens it potentially could go on forever and ever, completely within its own great power of shittiness. The nights where you stayed awake and wait for old stories retold. The others call it momentum.

I am curious, do you think it's possible to generate electricity by pairing Beagles together to run turbines?

Have a good Monday, all.

on Things That Never Was

2012-07-14T16:17:00.002+07:00

we are, we were, we never was.

Something I said a while ago. I was talking to Alice, something about things that never was. It always gets to me a different way whenever she said that things were never was. She referred to a specific event, a particular 'lowest point' in her life. Coincidentally, we just only met then.

I was away overseas and she always holds it evidence that I wasn't ready to commit. Of course, a whole load of things happened since and I don't share the sentiment but never managed to convince her otherwise.

Dealing with divorce is a difficult thing. I wrote a lot during my divorce - the blog was the busiest then. It was my way of making sense of things and it keeps me sane to write. I also spent most of my time online. Social interaction was complicated and it was so much easier to sit back and relax and write about polar bear cubs.

A younger cousin died. I'm not sure how, but drug overdose or side effects of the sort was not ruled out. Mother woke me up at five in the morning and that was the first thing I heard. A difficult way to start a day but Saturday marched on. For the most of it I was wrapped in Dave Matthews and blanked out. We are, we were, we never was.

on Stories

2011-09-26T02:10:00.001+07:00

to entertain and amuse
fools and lovers
fathers and sons
smiles nonetheless heard
amid a room full of silence
~Lame Attempt

Someone asked if these stories were true. Well, for the most of it, yes. They are true. The names and dates are changed and the sequence of events are often unreliable but the events that I described are most likely true.

She said she didn’t know I was going to be there. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. I tried asking but that she wouldn’t answer. She didn’t know I was going to be there but she knew the others would and that was difficult enough to understand. There were literally hundreds of friends and strangers. Parading it in my face was uncalled for, it was the night we met three years ago. We were supposed to have dinner the following night. She said she was sorry she didn’t wear it for her date with somebody else. I didn’t even know what that meant. If you asked me, I’d say she was drunk but then again, it would be more believeable if you said I was drunk. The club was big enough for everyone. I offered champagne if she wanted to celebrate. And a table elsewhere but they insisted to stand in my face. I left and stayed outside for two hours while she danced and took pictures and looked pretty. Her friends were there and all of them left, everybody was in a hurry to pretend like they didn’t know what happened. All alone her smile faded and she hit me in the face and stormed out. The hyper prize of Jakarta social, you could get away with anything so long as you look good doing it in the mirror. When the mirror fails, you bring your own crowd.

Of course, why would anyone want to do that, is really beyond my faculty for understanding so you’re free to choose whether it actually happened or it didn’t. Some of it did, some more of it happened too, but they didn’t make it to my notes. Some things aren’t worth remembering.

Someone asked why they weren’t here. Why I never wrote about them, even if they were there. I’m not entirely sure. I don’t have a rule about when to write about what, or who but generally I only write when I know how the story ends. Other things I write elsewhere and it wasn’t for anyone to read. It helps

Some of these stories are real, others are my wishes and fantasies. At times, they feel a lot more real than they were, other times they remain a taste of distant memories. I no longer question why shit happens. They just do.

I flew halfway across the world to have dinner with the woman I married, all the way to a restaurant out in the water by the pier in Brighton. Just as I changed for dinner, coming out from the shower and getting dressed, I realised I lost my wedding ring. The hotel room was literally torn apart but they never found the ring. Arriving to my table, the love of my life waiting, the first thing she noticed was of course, the ring. I didn’t even bother to try explaining how I lost it, or where and when. Even I knew the answer wouldn’t change anything.

Do I blame anyone, or do I think anyone is responsible for any of these? No shit. I’m a social retard, not a deluded idiot. I don’t blame anyone, I merely take notes. If I was going to write my own stories, I'd leave out the parts with cancer and bank balance. As far as I am concerned, shit just happens. There’s nothing you could do. Vince called it Freak Occurrence and Jules called it Divine Intervention.

When the train finally came, I walked onboard and left. It was good while it lasted. It was bad when it was real. It was just the way they were. We are, we were, we never was.

The train always comes at three am and sets apart what dreams were real. To me, this is unreal as it is to you, but it is nevertheless my life and my blog. So I write.

Have a good week, all.

on The Morning After

2011-09-25T15:04:00.000+07:00

I think I was once
I think we were
~Jim Morrison, Wilderness

The week was intense. There was that whole business with peace in the Middle East and the economy looking for a new low but as always, I’m more interested in myself.

I spent more time in and dealing with hospitals than anyone could possibly would ever want in the last week. It was just one thing after another. The people in white are never the ones with good news. I needed to get away from them just to get better.

I sent my results to Sam, taught her how to do Google Hangout and set us up for two hours of lecturing and tongue-lashing from my old friend. She didn’t look at all old, however. I had another blackout a few weeks back and that dropped me out for a few days but I felt better now. The drugs put me to sleep and the painkillers numb the pain. In my book, this is better. Sam concurred.

The night adventures were no less exciting. The party the other night was a new low even for a guilty conscience and the timing couldn’t be more ominous. It was the night we first met many years before, surely, I could be forgiven for remembering. She apologized for not wearing the birthday present since she was out there for a date with the wrong guy, parked in my face. Drunk as you were, it was still hard to believe, whatever drugs to take.

After they left we partied on and I left the club at the wee hours, calling the one number that I knew would pick up at such ridiculous hour. I told her I needed to get away and she happened to be awake.

She came with her big car and let me drive, ramming the beast for borderline red sprinting the length of Jakarta outer ring road with the windows down. Sobered me up right quick though I probably had enough shit in my blood to kill a regular horse.

Olive dumped me – if that was the word – not like we even met or anything in recent years. She said she now decided to do it as if she hadn’t done it ages ago. She asked what I saw in her – or maybe she was wondering what I saw in Alice. Maybe she was upset cause I didn’t get her a birthday present. Maybe something I said on Twitter upset her. I wasn’t sure. We didn’t even meet, she did this via text.

How could she dump me if we had never actually dated was not a subject we breached. My companion of the night cracked a laugh every once in a while as we made laps and mocked the crescent moon.

I asked why she didn’t wish me an August birthday. She said it was only to see if I were to notice. She asked if I gave anyone at all a birthday present this year and I told her about the stones. She asked if I had pictures but I didn’t. I turned the music up and reminded her that we were there to forget. She reminded me I said that three years ago.

Jakarta doesn’t get any stickier.

More

on The Mourning Bride

2011-09-22T05:51:00.000+07:00

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
~The Mourning Bride

The whole night was bizarre. Of course, there was an easy point to be made that I ruined a perfectly good night out for everyone, but really I didn’t. I had my own reasons to go and it had absolutely nothing to do with pulp romance.

It felt funny this morning so I thought it was just some leftover funny and I went out anyway. I was supposed to go to another party later so a thirty minutes gap could’ve changed the cosmic balance of things. It could’ve been just the weather or the traffic or the drugs I wasn’t taking. I felt funny and the back of my head felt like it was pushing towards the front, pressing reality a little bit too hard on my forehead.

I needed to go out somewhere with loud music just so I didn’t have to go mad listening to the voice inside my head.

There were hundreds of people that night. Only one person knew all of us was going to be there. She wanted to gloat to her ex and brought a date. Except that she ran into me instead. I was there with a bunch of guys looking for a night out to get wasted.

I was already inside and well into our drinks when I spotted her just arriving with a group of friends. She came up to me, looking slightly wasted and drinking straight from a beer bottle, saying, “Behave yourself…” like sixteen times. I knew she was drunk but I told her to quit saying it after a while. She then dragged me to introduce her date, a singer or something. Someone I was supposed to recognize but really I didn’t. I really wasn’t sure what the proper etiquette at this point. I tried hard to be polite but I couldn’t exactly pull a conversation with the poor fucker so I went back to the bar and ordered another drink.

The fucking drinks never arrived so I spent a lot of the time staring and trying to blank out. Alice and her group of friends parked themselves literally next to my group, so I had to watch as they took group photos and shit. Modern day Jakarta hipsters, it’s all about looking pretty and available. I guess my role was supposed to be sitting in the bar and watch the whole sick tragedy plays out with bad music in the back. Truly, the music was torturous.

I wasn’t quite sure how exactly to behave so I went outside for to breathe a bit. The air was sick and reeked with bad shit. She was as pretty as always, immaculate as ever. She said it was her job to look well.

At some point in the night, she came outside and chatted a little bit, her friends came to said good bye and left. I asked who she was going home with and she went completely mental. She hit me in the face.

Her friends came to get her and they went home. I went back to the club, drank a little more and tried hard to forget everything that just happened. Everything that happened between today and the same night years ago. Exactly the same night, and everything in between, and to pretend like none of it had ever happened.

Perhaps that’s just how Jakarta works. You pretend like you didn’t see the greydom around you. You pretend like the smell of the stinking sewers wasn’t there at all, so long as you had the windows tight enough, you really would never know. You pretend like you didn’t know what things happened, even when they did, for no other reason than to pretend like we could feel good. Perhaps, I was supposed to stand there all night and watch her do what she did and pretended like I feel nothing.

Hundreds of people there probably knew how to pretend better. Only one person knew that we were all going to be there that night. She wanted all three of us to be there and everyone to see, friends and strangers, too. She wanted to dance and made me watch. I really wasn’t sure what the whole thing was all about. I left and got a smack in the face.

There’s only so much you could do to pretend like things didn’t hurt. You put a little bit more make up and crank the music a little louder and you could numb the pain. You take harder drugs and drink stronger stuff and pray that you’d fail to remember. You take the funny pills and believe that you will live forever.
You go for the light and hope the morning never comes.

You stood on the burning bridge and watch.

on Brighton Moments

2011-09-13T14:07:00.001+07:00

Once you were my future then you're my misery. In my future, once you're misery and forever you will be my past.
~Californication

It’s pretty weird. I know it’s not sounding like things were getting any better or anything but it did. You went out the back room with the mirror and not having to stare at it for too long. Actually, there were no mirrors. There were no real faces to see but the pretty ones. Who knows what you see in the backroom.

Outside, the heaven was ripe with Virgo moon, slightly yellow with a tint of gold not quite the cold blue colors of August. I don’t quite remember what was outside but I know the moon was not blue. I can’t remember much what’s outside. I wanted enough to forget but not too much so that I could remember the nicer bits. Most of the time, I just forget the bills.

It’s hard walking away. I don’t often do that. I’m like one of those ugly little dogs that snap and lunge at your ankles with all the worst intentions – never quite to eat you alive - but you will eventually die of rabies or some terrible mess. I feel like a mangy little dog at the moment. Then I took some more.

The train ride from Brighton was by far the hardest. It was long and cold and wintry and it was hugely expensive. The other Brighton in Melbourne was less horrible, a few degrees more embarrassing and slightly more affordable. The others I register less and less in my aging brain. I stopped keeping track of good byes.

There’s a small tree in front of my house right where I buried my dog. He was a great dog and lived a long happy doggy live for a few years with me. We moved places several times but he stayed with me. In both times I was in Brighton the dog was home waiting for me.

People come and go. The rest of the world is getting noisier and they now wake up earlier and earlier. As I sat on the train, there were always a lot of whys. Why things happen and why the gods aren’t being nicer. Why the most beautiful things hurt so much.

I went to the flower market and sought out the darkest roses I could get. Everything in there at the time. They’re large and fresh though they hardly smell. The colour dark like wine. The thorns I put away but you couldn’t have put them all away and bound to hurt some one thing or another. You stood on the burning bridge and watched.

The ride away was easier as you find out where you were going. It was easier to sleep after a few days with harder and harder drugs. At some point forgetting seemed most natural as there are fewer and fewer things to remember. I remember little of Brighton except for the crazy dragon palace that the king built on his opium binge. There was a bit of coke and some tequila in the little room. The brief moments before each shot flashed with questions but tequila works every time. When it don’t then you add a little be more. Eventually it will all be alright.

There were many questions and none had answers but one was probably if it ever hurts as much for her doing what she did. There were so much deeds and deceits, everything was ugly and twisted and unreal and it was nothing like a love story should. I loved her as she was in love with someone else. Then love means very little. Maybe, it was never meant for anything at all.

You pushed to the corner, pressed the flush and took a little bit more. Salt and lime masked the pain, the rest of my faded self went elsewhere. You wished roses made things better but it didn’t. You wished the moon outside would do her things and make the nights better but it didn’t. You sat and wondered why it hurts as much as it did. Maybe if you were toughen up a little, you’d feel no more and fear no more and you took a little bit more. Maybe if you sleep a little bit longer, you will eventually forgive.

I wanted to sleep.

Escaping Wonderland

2011-09-12T08:56:00.003+07:00

the edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
~ hunter s. thompson

The people on this blog aren’t named (nor the stories dated properly) for good reason. Some stories are best never told. You don’t really have to read on.

The story with Alice began with a trip to Wonderland ages ago. It seemed like forever now and details are now hazy but allow me to indulge. The only thing I have from those days – and the whole ride really – are piles of emails. It’s my blog, my stories, my rules. Consider this science fiction. Maybe I write it down trying to make it real.

We communicate with better things thru better ways and yet we tell each other less and less. Maybe because we expect everything to happen on Twitter and so we naturally assume that if it’s worth finding out that you had already found out anyway, and thus it wasn’t worth telling at all. In any event, yes, emails. Nothing more. It used to be sms that did this. Now we live the day and somewhat rest our soul to Google and Facebook to keep the better memories. Same shit different day.

Maybe I was just pissed that I was the last to find out.

We never went to movies or went out anywhere proper except for very few, select, mostly incidental arrangements. There was no pictures around. I once took a series of her on the couch but lost it when I lost my 500GB drive a few months back. I had some pictures she sent from strange lands but that seemed too much like a different life now.

Whenever we crossed paths with other people in Wonderland, it was almost always something unpleasant. Anything from psychopathic trolls to family dramas and divorce lawyers. The only thing that ever happened for real was us. At least at some point, it seemed like there was an us somewhere. In hindsight, there was probably nothing.

It was never right to go down the rabbit hole and I should’ve been expecting the unbuckling. The trip wasn’t in Technicolor but Alice was beautiful. Alice made things happen. She made you believe in the impossible. I did.

We never went to movies but Alice was good at story telling. We stayed on the couch and made love all day. We made love so intense at times, despite of all the other things in Wonderland, we were invincible. I felt good like I haven’t been in a long time. There must’ve been a lot of good there.

It sure felt good at the time but still, Wonderland felt like what it was, never quite the full reality with a dose of abandon and foul language. I didn’t quite get my head offed but she kicked me in the groin once. That ending was rather abrupt.

I went thru my archive and I've pretty much said my piece about the subject. Affairs, cheats, guilt trips, lifelong denials, the whole fruitful nature of the women kind, apples and the original sin. For the most of it, we've all heard it before. Life cycles out mostly everything. After watching Game of Thrones I now believe in dragons did exist in distant past. I’ve seen them all and done most of it before.

For the first time I handed the car key to a girl the other night and slept thru my ride home quietly. It was one of those things, I always offered to drive for the girl and I certainly have never before fallen asleep in a car ride anywhere. My sleeping problems aren’t limited to the bedroom and generally speaking, I can hardly sleep in bed other than my own. There’s always a first time for anything. The girls would say that I don’t have much of a social skill anyway and they are most probably right.

I guess in many ways it was about expecting to survive and escaping Wonderland at some point. That’s what it said in the book. Eventually we were hoping to emerge somewhat on the other end and do some good and that kinda worked to keep at it. For a while that seemed convincing enough.

I called on Vi to ask what would normal people do. Of course, it’s not like Vivian would know any better about Normal People. Normal People don’t climb into the rabbit hole and got lost in Wonderland. I asked if there was ever a red pill-blue pill moment where choices were to be made to be a prostitute – and expensive one - or ‘did things just happen.’ In a city like Jakarta, anything can happen. She explained that it was mostly a lifestyle thing. One thing after another. It’s not like I know how to raise a kid. I keep a dog – and a cat. People are keen to remind me of that these days. She asked how my quest for the Cure of Cancer goes. I got lost in Wonderland.

We ended up at Dragonfly where I drank mostly water all night and watched Vi danced with her friends. I never saw Alice dance. She loved to dance and I knew that but we just never got around to it. The few random nights where we actually went to clubs they were overly crowded or were just the wrong crowd. She went clubbing mostly with her friends and I wasn’t much into clubs. I just realized how much I wanted to see her dance. Vi asked how I knew she could dance.

Of course the blue pill moment was rather obvious. You didn’t just fall into the rabbit hole. In my case, Alice presented me with the choice and they were clear. The sky was blue then. It was like I sat down properly with Morpheus himself and everything was as real as it would ever get. These were the things that would matter.

Vi asked if I was in love. Love made me do stupid things. It’s not like people don’t know these things. They do all sorts of crazy stuff. That probably was true as well but really it was more the temptations of growing up. To learn how to love beyond the madness of Aphrodite, lust was not all there was to it. That I wanted to spend a Sunday afternoon watching happy little people under the sun. To see her dance.

I asked if she ever loved the Old Man. If she ever wanted to have her daughter to come to Jakarta and live with her. For the lives we choose to live, Jakarta knows no limit. She wondered if there ever was any substantial distinction of the people you wanted and the people you needed to be with and Jakarta had the most to offer. Even if there were any distinction however, we failed to see how it could make any difference.

Newton toyed with his eyeballs to see if he could look at real life differently. The heaven and the stars above are only as beautiful as the eyes looking at it. He very nearly blinded himself in the process but he proved a point. Plus he figured out where the stars and everything else were.

Olive wondered what I saw in her. She reckoned that I put too much on the glitter and the makeup and thus I forever destined to be rolling down the wrong path. She’s one of those few who knew of my past married life and the whole hangup with children and my mommy issues and shit. She was the difference between the world of Captain Hook and the Mad Hatter. In the most generic sense that a female person could make sense, Olive probably makes a little more sense than Vivian and I was all ears.

Not that it mattered one bit. The matter of the adventure with Alice was never brought for the Council. In fact, few Council members were aware of my trip in Wonderland and disclosures were provided on need to know basis. Not so much that there was anything to hide – because, this we really didn’t – but mostly for precautionary measures against trolls. It was never my trip to begin with.

Vi asked how could I not know of the things I now do earlier. I was supposed to be good with this thing. At this point we were sitting around in a coffee shop somewhere and the caramel Frappuccino dripped on her lips. Perhaps we were in some sort of state of denial, although I would’ve insisted that it wasn’t. Not for me. Maybe it was more like Dorian Gray. They all waited so long to look for the painting in the attic. Then it was late. Her sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed, an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for her.

Frightening as it was, I had been down there before and I knew the crazy shit Wonderland pulled over your waking eyes. I was there to watch. Watch like the White Rabbit she said. It's not like there's anything really I could've done. I asked if people could really ever fuck their ways out of trouble. My friend was an escort girl for a while, she knew this stuff and it was a perfectly legitimate question for a morning with a bad hangover and a vengeful Sun. She said it really depended on how much money you have – and how fit you are. She has a body built to sin and spend most of her days in the gym.

If Morpheus ever offered her the pills, she would be one to say no thanks and walked away not taking anything. I don’t think Vi ever did drugs. She always said her life was crazy enough as it was and she had trouble finding the way home even when sober. So we sipped the fraps and stared at the sun until we could do that no more.

We stood at the burning bridge and watched.

Maybe I didn’t see it coming. Maybe I did but I didn’t know what to do. Maybe this and that. Maybe the fire scared the shit out of me. Maybes. We could do that all afternoon but the sun was hurting the eyes. She asked if I were fit enough to drive so I dropped her back and took a cab home. She called me on the phone for company and before falling completely asleep she asked if I would go down the rabbit hole once again. Maybe, maybe not. Whatever. We share the exact same birthday so she knew exactly how it feels growing old. You run out of life earlier in Wonderland.

Jakarta, August 2011

on Money Machines

2011-08-27T19:22:00.002+07:00

"Investors need to start from scratch, rebuild their portfolio and have a conversation on how much risk they are willing to take, get some help -- someone who can navigate this market unemotionally."
~Dean Barber

The global market went thru its worst swings during the first half of August. By the second week, market transaction exceeded the volume from the entire previous month. The week registered some of the wildest market volatility in decades. Trillions of dollars moved and some disappeared into the ether.

Analyst and technician were convinced that computers have taken over the trading and hitched the market on a roller coaster. This wasn’t the first time it happened either, in 2010, the Dow fell nearly 1,000 points in minutes. Computers rule Wall Street, says CNN.

Most large funds rest their portfolio on automated trading platforms, managing risk and exposure based on sets of rules and parameters. Machines execute the trades in miliseconds. Technology of today makes it possible to keep track of the billions of dollars within individual funds.

Only machines could do that. Most human trusts less of other human when it comes to large among of money so they let the machines do the managing.

As these machines soared to work in August, the global network trembled and for a few weeks the Dump brimmed to the limit. A lot more noise and a lot more data went missing.

Actually, No.

Large banks keep their own machines so the bytes never really disappeared. On the outskirts of Manhattan and in various suburbs of world’s metropolis, gigantic machines in private clouds of large organizations pounce and work the data so many different ways to make sense of money, for the human.

It would trickle out later reassembled, reformatted and rearranged in the circumstantial modeling needs of these human traders, access would be very tightly controlled and audited. Most human would never, ever get to the raw stuff.

The authorities go all Bradley Manning on anyone stealing from the Dump.

on Packets

2011-08-05T15:20:00.001+07:00

It's a scientific fact.For every year a person lives in Hollywood, they lose two points off their IQ.

~Truman Capote

There were pictures and numbers. Millions of them. At times, he spends hours staring into those pictures like they do in movies. Lots of faces. Sometimes he recognizes familiar faces but finding the matches are work for the machines. He was only looking to see if there’s anything that his mind picks up anything the machines failed. The machine always misses.

The screen shut to sleep mode and he dove back into the pool. The water cancelled out the noise. For a while, he heard nothing else but the water. He made two laps under the water in the pool then moved to sit in the hot pool, watching the laptop from the far end.

The raw packets came in various sizes and with their own metadata. There are machines that catalogue and assign them unique packet IDs. Some encrypted, others binary or plain text, the machine don't care. Each packet stacks were tagged and packed, usually no larger than 2GB but some machines now work directly on the cloud so size doesn't matter as much. The machine could work on for as long as neccessary.

There's also The Dump. Machines are very good at looking for the obvious - catching duplicates and noise cancellation – and the unused data are scattered all over the internet. A lot of these made their way into the Dump and there were people and machines living off it The packets are mostly noise, but they frequently threw random stuff. Mostly faces.

People used to pay many to go play in The Dump and collect pictures or files to feed random RSS for their blogs or photoblogs or what not. It was random enough for Google who put text ads next to it. Like an automated blog farm. It used to be all about ‘the Customer.' Marketers and social engineers play the human arbiter and did their best to make things make sense for human. Human sells the click.

Lately everyone knows that machines are mostly doing the clicking. Machine clicks, machine reads, machine logs. Human do little else but paying for them and playing with them. Tablets, mobile phones, smartphones and what not.
For some reasons, the machines are very peculiar about maintaining the old and redundant and obsolete machines. Machines never forget. They don’t really die. Not very many people get to see the Dump.

Beyond the Cloud, packets are available in all flavors. Machines sort out tags and reassemble the bytes into more coherent threads. Music packets make their ways onto Torrent and from there on, for retailing to the rest of the internet. Video packets are larger and require added human value in packaging and subtitling. In the Mainland, machines already do the subtitling into broken Indonesian, French, Portuguese and whatnot.

From a TiVo in the US, all the way to wholesale DVD industries in Asia, the packets never reached any physical form. Not until they were burned on bright discs and sold in the billions in the region. Packets worth differently to different people, but only if you know what they are. Or where to get them.

The small man emerged from the water and walked over to the laptop bringing it back from sleep mode. A few more minutes according to it.

Less legitimate packets came incomplete or available only in fragments. More sophisticated machines let you play with these and design your own packets. This particular one was geotagged – as most wireless packets inevitably are – to filter out specific areas in South Jakarta. It looked like it came from three Malls and two office building but he didn't yet have the details.

Courtesy of other machines, the packets were reordered to keep a timeline on a location, or a set of locations. Online services data, mobile snapshots, connection logs, security cameras, public webcams, whatever. Random thoughts, food pictures, corny songs and tons of porn. People want their porn everywhere and the machines know. They could be instructed to ignore these but they know to always include some.

The laptop on the dry desk continued to work with the screen dark. The box was verifying a particular 650GB files collected from the last batch earlier in the year. Machine approximation works differently to human. The laptop said it would take two hours to do it. Now it kept saying a few more minutes.

It was important to verify the packets and be completely certain that you have the packets you needed. The machines have no refund policy.

He closed his eyes and flashes came by. It was like to spot a memory. In fact, it was exactly like that. The digital fragments are memories of human, machines and the network around them. Collecting these memories was the easy part. Finding the right ones is a separate task. He wasn’t even sure of what he was looking for.

The data came from the Dump so they were littered with fragments and reacquired logs. With the binary data and encrypted separated, there were still gigabytes of text dump. He had yet look into it again but from what he'd seen and heard, the packets appeared to look random enough: public areas, Malls hotspot, cafes, Point of Sales and even parking logs.

From this point on, it was his packet to do as he wished. It was out of the Dump.

on Herr Minister

2011-05-15T17:31:00.003+07:00

Political economy came into being as a natural result of the expansion of trade, and with its appearance elementary, unscientific huckstering was replaced by a developed system of licensed fraud, an entire science of enrichment.
~Engels

Herr Minister stood straight by the window in his room so that he's back was parallel to the glass. He was dressed like an American banker even though he was actually educated in 1980s Pakistan.
Today, he wore a dark navy suit with white shirt and a light blue tie. In his breast pocket, a matching handkerchief. He looked almost Italian.

The Consultant was mostly listening. Herr Minister wanted a test run on his vision. He wanted toys to play with and to show the world his was as good as any of them. He made good on his bluff against Blackberry and other American companies and he was on international newspaper. Herr Minister was not about to back down and The Consultant's job was to meet his wishes.

The other persons in the room were two people from accounting department and they were busily keeping notes on how much Herr Minister's new toy was costing the Nation. This was perilous times and they understood that Herr Minister was not to be denied.

The military and the agencies understood the threats of future even if they had problems articulating it. The politicians were still rattled by the recent deregulation, a subtext of paranoid, post-nationalist is always a fixture of Indonesian politic narrative. The President and the people in power naturalled feared that they yielded too little power and control over their future.

Herr Minister was the main man and he was intent on delivering beyond the expectations. Secretly, he wished the future for himself. The Consultant's job was not to ask questions.

On his laptop, he worked on a recquisition form. The major telcos rolled several new, massive rural network to be deployed as part of the Government's infrastructure push. These were large data network designed to eventually take over the country's future to the digital age. A national grid. The Consultant's job was to listen in to this new national grid. Herr Minister wanted it done.

In Tunisia just before the revolution, the Ammar - their equivalent of an Information Ministry Agency - deployed a country level keylogger that essentially feed the entire Nation's login information and credentials to the Ben Ali's regime. The Ammar collected hundreds of thousands of Facebook and GMail passwords and used them to quell dissent. Facebook eventually figured it out and upgraded their entire security policy.

The Egyptians had access to American technologies. Deep packet interception technologies were unavailable to commercial enterprises just five years ago but nowadays, industrial grade, real time telco technologies were all available to the right bidder.

It used to be that the most sophisticated real time monitoring systems were only available through Israeli companies. GSM encryption were notoriously hard to crack - burner phones are still the most secure voice communication system available for your entry level would be terrorist. GSM interception systems were only made available to government agencies via lengthy negotiation and hefty price tags - the implementation took years.

These days, real time GSM interceptions are available to kids with laptops and internet connection.
The Consultant was happy with his budget and excused himself. Herr Minister looked happy and that was all that mattered. The Consultant would set to work immediately.

on The Cloud

2011-05-11T20:58:00.002+07:00

There was also a girl. I have not seen her since that night. Not that you could escape her sights. We chatted on blackberry on random nights. Mostly emails.

I wrote her very long emails. Some drunken rant, parts and pieces of my world domination plan. I know I shouldn't be telling people stuff but I did anyway.

The Edgelings and the girl never met. As far as I know none of them had ever personally meet each other but we were all experienced each other's existence. Among us, we always know there were others that knows more. Within us, there's always a need to know more. Beyond the hives however, there's always more.

There were wars among the hives. Mad, brutal conflicts happened on regular basis. In the ancient days we faxed black tape roll to ruin their toner. Everything from pizza delivery to illegal packets. I woke up to find my mailbox spammed to the quota - porn spam.

In Camden Town they were running international network of free telcos. Exploiting the numbered flaws found on the old analog switches on last generation telco infrastructure was a past time. In New York, some guys routed calls to party lines in the Carribean. In Jakarta there was a market for free to call phones. In Hannover, a group of Turks were establishing a trade route of international calling cards network - a lot of them needed to call home.

I think kids everywhere just want to talk. The world was learning to talk. These days they do different stuff. A team of geeks raced across the desert into Benghazi and stole Ghadaffi's telco, making free calls for the people in the rebel held area.

For Indonesian kids under Soeharto, the big secret was the weatlh of information out there. Beyond their repressive despot realm of control, the citizens of the world shared a common hope. Beyond the Cloud, up in the air with whispers and secrets, there were all sorts of things.

on Sikrets

2011-05-11T14:02:00.001+07:00

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
~The Secret Sits, Robert Frost

There's a gang, a very small and loose gang in the city armed with antennas.They collect secrets.

People do this everywhere in the world, especially a few years ago when wireless was new and people don't understand why they need secure connection.They set their laptops in random places and listen in to the air, capturing bits and whispers.

Normal laptop will do but if you add a small antenna, then it could be quite powerful. When you do it over an area to map security leaks. These days you do it in a car with an iPad.

If several people doing it - across a time period, then you could easily map whose network and what are they using it for. Most of the time, people do it to sniff the network - identifying the holes. The data are usually rubbish (because driving means you're likely to only capture parts of data streams) and often times hard to understand since you lack any context to decipher.

A much smaller group of people are more interested in data. They keep and pile random rubbish for months and pour it over every time you have more. Some go to starbucks everyday, some hangs in the mall, others install beacons semi permanently in public places. Over time, you build context. By time I don't speak weeks, more like hours than days.

Locating a peculiar rooftop corner in SCBD for example, these kids locked into the network used by large banks where they sync books and compile nightlies. Until very recently, nobody ever really get the wireless demons.

Most times, it's harmless and completely random shit but over time, you collect secrets.

on Full Wreck

2011-01-09T04:12:00.000+07:00

O, swear not by the moon, the fickle moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
~Romeo and Juliet

Describing what I am right now isn’t easy. I myself would have a hard time. I suspect most common observers would say the same. One in particular described me as a wreck and I was inclined to agree.

It was New Year’s Eve and Princess found me stuck in a corner chatting up a minimally dressed nineteen years old with Pearl Jam blasting ridiculously loud. The room was so dark and so loud and stunk with antiquated cannabis and beer residue and I was resting on a thumping Peavey box sounding out Eddie Vedder. The 19yo before me was a friend of a friend who was all too keen to learn of what grown ups do in New Year’s Eve. Then Princess turned up.

She arrived unannounced and uninvited. Apparently she’d been around since well before midnight but she was lounging in the other room and was totally unaware of my presence in the vicinity. Likewise, I was preoccupied in the box at the furthest end of the hall.

I was told it was going to be a small and intimate affair. I was in no mood for drama and handling Miss Kryptonite on New Year’s Eve wasn’t it and I thought I had made this clear to the guys. I agreed to come and socialize only because I was running low on my own drinks and that Chummy came to pick me up himself. He said he had stuff for me to work on and I needed work so I went with him. It would’ve been good to meet the boys.

Nineteen was as nineteen does. She was sweet and pretty with legs that went on forever. I recalled seeing her at The Cure concert in Singapore a while ago, she was with the group that went on to party at a club at the Quay. I remembered her small protruding breasts, she was wearing a small and delicate top with no undergarment. I couldn’t recall her name though.

Polka Boy arrived before midnight, along with a few large boxes of dynamites and fireworks. He promised them to be very loud and bright. The last two boxes contained half a dozen identical bottles of cheap Mexican tequila. Cheap and foul but they were the real deal. The Kitchenhands readied sets of salt and lime along with their magnificent soups. I thought it was probably one of the best parties ever since none of us needed to do anything at all. Good stuff were hand delivered in good taste.

Meanwhile, Guitar Boy and a few other guys were drinking and smoking and gossiping and groping in the other room. They were watching Pearl Jam at the Madison Square Garden in the soundproofed studio – I took the next box and got only the audio and Nineteen. You get the picture.

To tell the truth, it wasn’t even slightly pornographic as Princess found me out shortly after midnight. She burst into the room, I didn’t realize she was behind me until she was literally right behind me, smelling of her royal scent. Nineteen choked for a few seconds and politely excused herself out while I struggled to manage an erection.

Really, there was nothing pornographic. It was all just my dirty, dirty mind.

She was concerned about Mother and we chatted a little bit about the family stuff and what not. She told me about a new job she was working on. I think it was some art project or something. I wasn’t really paying attention. I told her that I really needed to shut down and not think of anything real for a while and that she was ruining my wildly fantasized New Year’s Eve.

We left the room shortly and mingled with the other guests. It was a windy night and a little cold but the fireworks were heard for miles. Most of us were just lounging on the roof as the skyline cracked with colours. Polka Boy was right, his arsenal was very loud. Some of us were very wet in the pool and others were eating continuously. I had more soup and some caramel pudding. She was holding my plate. I don’t think anyone noticed.

I was feeling sad and lonely and angry and mad and I was in search of comfort for self preservation. There was no rule in the book that says that you shouldn’t hold hands with the ex.

For a brief hour or so, Jakarta was happy and familiar even comforting. Everyone joked only the right jokes and laughed for most of the night. Some of these faces I’ve known for many years. Some were married then, so many are now divorced and single. The most thoughtful question of the night must’ve been, “how many marriage is currently socially acceptable?” Others were single until very recently and they were busy playing nice to their spouses. Nineteen and her friends were underage a decade ago.

I thought I sounded very old then.

But fuck yeah. I’m a thirty years old with one divorce and a dog. I’ve a mother with a malignant tumor and no medical coverage. I’ve been through hell and back. I danced with angels and demons and you never get home in one piece. Socially awkward and positively demotivated, I am clinically depressed and on pain killers about half the time. The rest of the time I spend trying to get some sleep.

I’m not old, I’m just very tired. It was nice to have someone hold my hand at night. I fell asleep on the couch for a few hours and dreamt of good things.

Jakarta, January, 2011

on Miss Kryptonite

2010-12-26T23:51:00.001+07:00

Situation with Alice degraded to a new low last week - the night before Mother had her operation - so I managed to pay attention less to it than I would have had I not been preoccupied with finding a cure for cancer.

The operation itself went well. It was a few hours longer than it should have but eventually the one of the Green Robes came out and told us things were okay. She came around a few hours later and seemed to have been recovering well.

Presently, she's staying with some relatives somewhere so I have my lair back to myself, free to plot my Domination Plan as I see fit.

Mortality mortified her. I could see it in the last few weeks as mother brought with her a dark cloud of unprecedented pessimism and brooding disaster. I been told that this is common with cancer patients and the condition with mother was medically certified to be considered pretty serious. Nevertheless, it took its toll.

Like I said, the situation with Alice didn't help so I just blanked it out. There’s a point in life where you just couldn’t handle everything at once regardless of how badly you’re wanting it.

Ex called from California. She was just calling to chit chat about mom but we got away talking for quite a little bit. Apparently she is still a lesbian. I felt a little nasty tinge but didn’t make a fuss. I asked what the weather was like. Apparently she doesn’t do much outdoor. She told me she drives an Audi now. She said it’s very fast. I believed her. I drove an Audi A4 in Hong Kong last year and I’m still giddy.

She asked if I saw Princess recently and I had to answer truthfully. I replied a firm no. Women positively give me headache and Miss Kryptonite isn’t a good idea. In fact, she was never a good idea. Just the thoughts make me giddy. I wondered why she asked and it was explained that someone sighted us in a club somewhere.

Which is not entirely untrue.

I saw Princess some party in some club somewhere. I was going for the bathroom and went past her table and she grabbed me on the way back and we sort of had a conversation. By conversation I mean she talking and me nodding and grabbing for more drinks and trying really hard not to look into her eyes. It was a case of me stewing in unadulterated lust in front of a magnificent bad dream. When I went back to my table I started doing tequila shots because I honestly thought I needed them. The boys picked on me for the rest of the night but that was that. Nothing happened.

You noticed that every time I mentioned this girl I insisted that nothing happened? Yes, really nothing happened. It’s just bloggable, that’s all.

on the Lunatics

2010-11-16T03:47:00.000+07:00

Many things happened the last few weeks, I don’t have much time to write. Mother called and told me she had a bad tumor. She said she needed an operation at Dharmais Cancer Hospital soon. As in within days and the docs needed to meet me in person. I didn’t know how to react and I still don’t. I’m still processing I wish I could just go on processing that forever.

The earth is getting angrier and angrier. Merapi coughed up a few times in a few weeks and the dead numbered in hundreds. Sad sad weeks.

Gayus went to Bali and saw a tennis match. That’s also some creepy shit. I didn’t even have the time to breathe Obama.

Anyway, I saw Joko Anwar’s Onrop today. It’s a musical satire based on the current events right here in Indonesia. There was a scene where Bram, the book writer was tried for using the word ‘naked’. Luna was sitting next to me and she just got the word that Ariel is going to trial next Monday. The press will pick it up soon enough. The way they time this shit is getting overly obvious.

Anyway, the musical was really good. I haven’t seen any musical since London and I never thought I’d enjoy something like that in Jakarta.

Weird shit.
Write later.

on Things That Matter

2010-07-06T02:42:00.001+07:00

What's wrong with you, with us,
what's happening to us?
Ah our love is a harsh cord
that binds us wounding us
and if we want
to leave our wound,
to separate,
it makes a new knot for us and condemns us
to drain our blood and burn together.
~Love, Pablo Neruda

I forgot to mention i saw Princess the other day. It wasn’t like a date or anything of the sort, we literally ran into each other at Loewy and I stayed for courtesy. She was nice as always and she smiled a lot these days. I like her that way.

I told her about the book thing and that I am thinking of writing things down and that many more people might read it and if she cared to have a thought about it. It’s not like we have a sex tape or anything but it might be of some consequences. I wanted to know what she thinks of it.

Loewy was rather busy and travelling in her company always attracted unnecessary attention so we didn’t get to talk much. She asked if I’d be getting any money out of it. To be honest, I understand why she asked and she probably should. I told her that I most probably not gonna get anything out of it. I certainly am not expecting anything. It just sounds like a thing to do.

She asked me to read a script and tell her what I think of it. I had a glance and it didn’t seem like much. I have no sense of what the Indonesian kids would like to see these days but I promised her to read it in full.

For no good reason Princess also asked about Alice and if there was anything going on. I told her that I might very well be falling in love with someone but as it was in any other time in my life, I honestly have no idea if I was and I’ve even fewer ideas of what to do next. She wished me good luck and stuff and we politely bid farewell.

on Things That Matter

2010-07-06T02:37:00.001+07:00

on the Heads of Men

2010-05-28T04:39:00.001+07:00

Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps,
Not on the ground but on the heads of men
~Love Symposium, Socrates

Little Johnny came to the house for advice on women. He was in some sort of trouble, I think. Something about girls always trouble big men in the weirdest way. I theorized it’s the Alpha male thing. Women are programmed to seek the sole strongest male in the pack, if you’re not it, you’re shit out of luck.

I never celebrated a party in my life but Princess did one for me some years ago. I didn’t really like it at the time and I still don’t like it very much now though I appreciated the effort. A bunch of my friends were there. Some people I was happy to see but mostly less so. I generally don’t like people and I don’t like it when a bunch of people are involved in some arbitrary ritual of drinking sub par bubbles for no good reasons.

I like things for a reason. Things without reasons have no good cause for their vicarious existence. They make me feel uncomfortable. An arbitrary birthdate is one of them. I like parties only when they serve good bubbles and good people. If I were to have only one of them I’d go to the pub.

Princess was somewhat obscuredly annoyed by my reaction. She didn’t think I was being appropriate. I was being mentally rude as if we were having a sort of platonic relationship, the two of us clocked in a telekinetic sex proportional to the proverbial orgasm. The orgasms were good however so we tolerated it. In other words, we fucked.

It wouldn’t be a good way to put it so I guess it’s most appropriate if I would put it differently and make nice of it. I didn’t know how and I wasn’t much for trying. Trying are for sissies. I told Princess that she was into me for it exactly so to change me would’ve been to change the only thing I was good for. To tell things like it is. And I’m also good in bed.

Girls like to see a strong man. One better than others. Like monkeys do. I told Little Johnny that he really should stop being a pissy little shit and own up to it. Girls smell losers miles away. Like dogs do. They know when you wag your tail the wrong way. Then you’re shit out of luck.

I guess Princess throwing a party somewhat made me feeling one less than others. Like that she was and I wasn’t. Being a Princess she did that quite a bit and after a while I learned to live with it. I loved living with it, to be quite honest.

It was harder to do as you say and say as you do as you move forward and done more. Then you’re shit out of luck.

It’s always a good advice not to lose your head.

Chapter I

2010-02-20T14:32:00.000+07:00

Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps,
Not on the ground but on the heads of men
~Love Symposium, Socrates

The story really should begin in Jakarta four years before Kaosan. It seems like it does.

I first saw her stumbling out of the coke room in a Jakarta party, lean and slender legs, a molested angel looking right in place under the epileptic lights. A little wet, a little more messy and very obviously drunk. She held a margarita glass with two fingers, her hair was in it, I politely pointed this out on the unisex mirror. She looked at me and smiled for an imaginary second and walked away.
I saw those legs in pictures and magazines but never up close. I needed to refresh myself.

A few minutes later, on the dance floor, she was still holding the same margarita glass, dancing to a decadent disco tune from the 80s when everyone was gay.

Angels on pins, I never knew how they do it.

She wore a white dress, small and careless with a matching pair of shiny shoes. She looked like she smiled all the time but it could’ve been the lights. She had glitters on her skin and I was probably staring for a while. Her shoulder bones white and bright, almost shining. She looked very pretty.

She noticed my staring after the song and walked right up, thrusting her empty glass for a refill and I poured shots of agave juice while we wait. She asked if anyone had any joint left.
There I was thinking that grownups only do pills.

As it was, she was 26 and we had exactly a skinny joint left. The music was too loud to attempt for real conversations so we mostly smoked pot and drank tequila and flirted. I had then the option not to fall in love. We were right where we belong.
She asked what I had for breakfast.
I asked what she wanted.
She said she wanted to die.

(And she gave me her number.)

on Fuzzy Pictures

2009-12-09T04:19:00.000+07:00

I want what women want, I think, but they won’t tell me because I’m expected to know. Now I’m more confused.
~http://www.neilwhite.org.uk/

Her drawing was a series of lines, mostly purple but some red with little words. She drew a dress of some sort, chalk marks in three colours on disproportionate match figures. There’s always those things you do in the bedroom, that time when you wanted nobody else to know. The even more uglier ones you keep tight in a closet. I don’t think you’re supposed to blog about it.

We spend more and more time in the bedroom, secured the world outside. Big gates and courtyards and guardhouses to filter all the bad things away. We deal with it when want to. Preferably in heels and make up.

Princess woke up every morning at 6.15, spent twenty minutes in the shower and stopped to wake me up and dried herself. Every morning she did that, she also took thirty seconds to count her toes. Sometimes she let me count them.

She returned with a glass of vitamin bubbles that I like. I asked if she wanted to keep me on retainer as the palace historian, my sole responsibility was to deliver great sex and made up the rest of the saucy details of the royal intrigues. She said she’d give it some thoughts but at the moment she was happy being a lesbian queen. She was well versed with continental debaucheries on grand scale. There’s always new things around.

I asked her if there really was a secret organization for gorgeous granddaughters of deposed tycoons headquartering in Boston. She clarified that I was assuming the one in Massachusetts. She said she liked the weather better in California. I asked if there’s any way to find out how many members are out there and she gave me the American Express compliant-concierge line.

I asked if it was common for any of the other members to be locking herself in the bedroom scrawling fashion sketches with crayons, barely clothed, drenched and soaked in whatever left with tequila sweat. She said she never knew Princess counts her toes. Apparently girls don’t get social in bedrooms unless in some pretty carefully detailed plans – ‘girls night out’ of sort. They shop for more makeup. She was salty.

Some skeletons you can’t put make up on. She told me as she was growing up, the family had a few photographers on retainer and they took tons and tons and tons of the best pictures of everything that ever happened. She kept them in several boxes in the corner and sometimes she went through it for reminder.

At the edge of hope – that point where you surrendered to time and wait only for the sun to rise a different day – you see things differently. There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. Edglings. Hunter probably got bored waiting for the next exciting thing to happen and when it didn’t, he pulled the trigger. He was right about the high water mark thing.

Sometimes the skeletons got out and everything went to shit. I have to keep telling myself that there is nothing I can do. We don’t always have something to do. Some nights, you rest with Fate. The night must get worse before they get better.

Chubby called again after the race. Hamilton ruled. He asked if I heard anything but I haven’t heard anything. I checked my phone again and wasn’t sure if I should be sad or glad that nothing happened yet. He reminded me there’s nothing we could do. Quantum of Solace.

The story is nothing at all like the film. In fact, it’s almost nothing to do with the film except probably for the phrase. Most Ian Flemmings are better in the book but the films have better cars. Quantum of solace was that last shred that makes you human. Cause you feel things, I guess. Even James Bond.

We got really bored and went to Dharmawangsa for the chocolate martinis.

Jakarta, Sep 2007

on Twittered Stories (part II)

2009-09-17T04:49:00.007+07:00

FYI...If you send me an email that starts out "Hello Mommy Blog" I am just going to make fun of you.
~@TheBloggess

- the first part of this stories are here.

I asked Vivian – false name, probable imaginary character whose primary form of occupation is an independent, high priced call girl but was at the present moment, sitting on my couch eating Pringles. She may or may not be on twitter – if she thought the image of modern Indonesian women need protecting at all. She also thought that was rather funny. Maybe they do, some twisted reverse gender twisting logic to help the unaffirmed. That is not a coherent sentence let's not be too pedantic.

Luna Maya was heard on Twitter asking Tora Sudiro of how to ‘botox an armpit’. The latter had allegedly done his. I am so totally at lost about what that could probably mean but I daren’t ask proper.

Do people really botox armpits? Luna is sometimes funny on television so she was probably funny on twitter too. Either way I couldn't find out more about this strange armpit thingy - Tora said it makes his 'armpit cooler' or something. I was left more confused than i was when i started listening in. I thought Tora would make an excellent subject since he is on twitter a lot.

There was an article on Lindsay Lohan, written via Blackberry convo over a few months while she was going through rehab. I think the story was on Esquire or something but i lost the copy. I thought it’s an interesting idea to test, see if anyone on Twitter would doing a piece since that would probably be fun. Anyhow, back to next agenda item. Also, first heard from twitter a while ago, a vicious rumor about Megan Fox being a man and all. The rumor originated from a certain Twitter character who claimed that she has a 'tutti frutti' flavor. I honestly can't remember how we got to twittering flavors but here's to end that whole Megan Fox thing - forever - from the new Rolling Stones photos.

The Kanye thing doesn’t interest me, except for the precedent of having a Presidential off record conversation twittered the rest was really hubris. Kanye was a jackass, but the world has never been short of jackasses. Axl and Kurt almost came to blow over Courtney (I know!) at a Grammy, I think. Eminem, Slash, Motley Crue, the lot of those guys were as badly behaved as today’s corporate sponsored jackasses. It’s too gimmicky and I can’t make me interested.

To be frank, I know almost nobody on Indonesian twitter scene and hardly pay attention to anyone beyond a small group of people with interesting conversations, but I can’t do a story on a Twitter character. Apparently ‘print’ people demands this. I don’t know. Maybe that’s why nobody ever print anything I write. I never send anything because nobody would take another nobody seriously. The logic chilling and goes in loop and Vi lost interests.

I told Vi to never twit with location. That just sounds a little careless to me. Being a prostitute and a pin up girl and all, it’s just possible that there are crazies out there pulling crazy stunts. Broadcasting your location is probably not very safe. She said DPR people are apparently using Blackberries because they’re safer. I pointed out that DPR is not where Indonesia put their smartest. Personally, I advised her against twitting. I don’t think it’s a good habit but I’m already addicted.

Sophia Latjuba and her husband are on Twitter and they twit each other a lot. They seem like a fun couple and frequently quite funny and there’s nothing to report except that the two seem scandalously happy. I suggested to Michael that he live twit their massage sessions but he said only to take it into consideration. Sophia called me an ‘almost’ angel and i was dizzied for a bit but Vivian really was not too impressed with my pubescent crush.

There was another terrorist shoot out on Indonesian telly but I refused to watch news so we just hang out and chat about more random rubbish. She asked if I truly cared of things I care about. I have a known phobe to commitments and it could be prohibitive to a cause.

She asked if I could truly care. I don’t know I guess. I used to talk about what things feel good and how someone once came along and reminded me how good things felt but that was a whole different episode and I generally try not to dance with fairy tales. Vi drank the rest of the Chianti and called me some food.

McDonald is apparently available 24/7. Twice I had McD in almost three years. I feel commoditized but we had no other food in the house. She bought a porn spoof of Pirates of the Caribbean a few nights ago and I planned to write about that but I haven’t actually got around to watching it. Can’t seem to find time to do smut these days. I find that worrying, too.

Speaking of porn, Maria Ozawa – the porn sensation – is coming to Indonesia next month. I’d love to score an interview but only just now found out. I find Twitter to be brimming with some serious lowbrow art aficionados but to have a proper porn star to do an interview would be totally cool. I told Vi she should read that book on Annabel Chung and this time she questioned my literary judgment for real. The other night, I ranted on everyone who was on the Secret Service Shitlist, a curious interests on the porn scene might be misinterpreted but really, it was one of those times when I couldn’t care for shits.

Vi stopped for a bit and spoke to Samantha on the phone, I was on a call with a roomful of lawyers on the wrong end of the world trying to learn why and how some people make tons of money with little more than zeal for more money. She thought I should stop bitching so much and take my medication. They both thought so.

Despite persistent efforts, I couldn’t find out who the father is to Sheila’s. Rob (the lawyer I interviewed earlier wrote a few bits on Sheila if you’re keen). Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to be fake too much interest on the subject. She’s a barely legal starlet with a rap sheet, kids make stupid decisions all the time. I don’t really get off kicking little kids around but whatever I guess. I’m not sure what the fuss was about.

Edwin – the short film director – had his movie opens in Manhattan this week, but I guess it was more lost in the shuffle. It was a day or two after DPR passed the new Film Law so I thought it was a bit sad. I don’t really know him but I saw some of his stuff and I thought they’re excellent. I've a copy of the Kara film and I thought it was really cool tho I don’t really get it. It just reminds me of that scene from Douglas Coupland with Ronnie McDonald. I told Vi the scenario and she thought it was fun tho we were really watching The Police on the screen. Something about the black dot in the sun. The pictures were just lost in the shuffle.

I tried finding out on Twitter if Edwin is around on twitter but the young man is obviously busy so I can only wish him luck. Andhara Early is the only person on the cast returned by a twitter search but I don’t know her. I thought she’s a babe, tho and from what I heard the film is cool (NY Times wrote a review here) I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t say. I’m not sure why people don’t find this more interesting, but well then.

I want to write about the Queen of Dangdut but currently having problem identifying one proper. She couldn’t think of any so we leave it at that. I thought it was unfair that a King of Dangdut was determined by his musical quality and yet the Queen was nominated by her bust size and i wonder why this is not an issue for the newly educated masses.

I asked Vi why nobody cared for such things but we reckoned the country is too big for anyone to care for everything. I told her Cut Tary – the supermilf from Indonesia’s twittering uberelites is there with other crews of her gossip shows and regularly chat with other twitterattis. I prolly a good start to check for the day's gossip. I don’t keep track of those things and I needed to rest. Vivian needed to go home, too. She needs to pack and stuff.

The world will just have to stay on without us lot keeping it together at all time. Sophia and Michael agreed to do it so I’m going to do my research on the good things of the world. I need the distraction. I also need to rest a bit. Vivian packed her stuff and got back into her car and drove off.

Have a good weekend all. Stay twittering.

on Moms and Daughters

2009-07-07T05:00:00.008+07:00

I had a strange night. It feels strange.

I was in a meeting in Citos and stopped by the pub just for a quick drink. The meet was a work meet and it was tiring and boring and I needed to wind down and stayed a little longer than I thought I would.

Then she turned up.

You see, a little while ago I dated girls. Pretty girls and beautiful girls and generally, nice girls. Life turns to shit and I probably had the shittiest time of my life. I have since swore to date rodents instead.

I’ve been true to my words and largely stayed away from girls for all these time. Nothing happened and really, nothing should happen cause I have not been doing much. I wanted a quiet life for myself. Life’s crazy enough without me getting involved with things and I was pretty happy with things – however bitter.

Until today.

She had a new hair and she put on some weight and she looked awesome. I’ve always had a soft spot and we’ve had our share of good times for a while but I haven’t seen her for a long while and it was a genuinely pleasant surprise. I was there with a large crowd and she was there with a large crowd and nothing improper happened. Her mother was there and I made light conversation and I think we got on pretty well.

She had a date. A dude in Michael Jackson hat and hairdo, two decades late and looking like a garden variety freako. He does sing along with some hopelessly shit band somewhere and thought about landing a record deal in Jakarta. A noble dream indeed. She was a VIP ticket for the place he wants to be.I quipped this and she laughed it out.

She changed a lot since I saw her last. Definitely looking better if the hair was completely different, now cropped to just the shoulders and new earrings. She told me the shirt she had on was as a sponsored item and she would’ve taken it off if she wasn’t legally bound to wear it.

I now have my hair long and she convinced her mother that I was a good boy back in the good old days. I told her I was writing something and would be very interested to have her do it. I’ve always wanted her to do it but the Jedi Council didn’t like her much so we went to different names. Now that I was seduced and completely charmed, I couldn’t resist.

In any case, she showed me the new tattoos. One has a little angel on it, a little sad but still fresh in colors. I babbled some nonsense or another and ordered drinks. She asked if had ever been to prison and I told her that i had times behind the uncomfortable doors. She hated her time but now she knows what it means. I laughed and she kissed me on the cheek. We sat on the bar at the centre of a whole of what’s left in the mall’s Monday night crowd. I promised her a bottle of tequila for the next time she’s in. I heard you can get all sorts of things in Jakarta prison these days, I’m sure a bottle of tequila wouldn’t be any problem. By the time you find yourself in prison, a bottle of tequila would be the very least of all your problems. I couldn't even imagine what fucked up shit could be happening.

Like I said, she just turned up. It would’ve all been forgotten, gone, scratched, left and very well removed. Untold.Until she turned up.

I remember once we were in a club somewhere and I was with Candi and we ran into each other. She also just had a new tattoo back then and she made a point by giving me a private viewing. Candi didn’t like one bit but I thought it was a laugh. She’s a lot of fun, she’s very pretty, very talented and I think she’s a wonderful person. She had her faults, but we all do.

She was now accompanied by several minders, one of them very obviously gay and the poor sod was sent to fetch her Blackberry in the bag. She showed us her video, I thought it was very well done and well, breathtaking. I’ve heard her voice and seen her perform since she was 14 or something – I know what I know. I still think she was breathtaking. I was probably mumbling about a thousand other things, some interesting but mostly they’re absolutely utter rubbish. The rest of the time I was only trying to compose myself. I didn’t even know how that happened. She turned up, as unlikely as it was, at 1am.

This whole time this happened, I was sitting literally on the bar, facing the whole of everyone with her sitting in front of me. I was not even aware that she had a fucking ‘date’ around. She had apparently left her table and took a place on the other side of the bar where I was more than happy to entertain her. I had no idea that some poor bastard in a Michael Jackson attire was standing there staring at me like an asteroid slummed motherfucker. Her mother was sitting with us, I was merely being polite to a dear friend.

The said poor bastard of course, couldn’t refuse and decided to come and step into our conversation – someone ought to tell this guy Jacko’s dead, really – and generally doing his best to look offended. He was polite and minimally mannered and asked for some private time with her ‘date’. We were conversing in English and I was thinking in English and I didn’t really get his accented Indonesian right but I politely excused the young man to spend whatever time he deemed necessary with his little Barbie. She had told me earlier that they have just met him the other week and kissed him while she was really drunk. She wanted my advice on how to best rid of him. The whole thing was getting weird, very quickly. I told her that it’s a good career move for him and it’s probably expensive. She asked if I could get her home safely and I told her that I’ve a driver outside. She lives a few blocks down so it’s really no trouble and if I get to piss on Jacko on the way, why not.

The young man and woman pulled themselves into a corner with the place watching in veiled suspense and I made light conversation with the mother. She was mother like all mothers are. Sweet and loving. She wants only the best for her daughter. Girls are mad, you can’t blame the mother. I made her tea and attempted a polite conversation. My attempt at being nice was this time interrupted by the yelling couple in the middle. She walked back, obviously angry and asked me, very loudly, to make sure that herself and her mother would get home okay. I gladly assured the girl and the mother both that I would do my very best to make sure they get home alright. Jacko was getting on my nerve big time and he had a funny stare that really made me think of the whole perverse thing with little kids. I could not find, for the life of me, find one shred of reason in life to not dislike him with all my existence. I didn’t like him a lot.

The little angel, however, was a comforting presence and she kept my calm. She explained to him, spelling it out to him for the whole crowd to chip in, that she would not be going home with him. The angel had made up her mind and she, with her mother, would find someone else to take her home and she no longer required his service. If it was a little awkward, I thought she was being superbly capable of handling the situation. Say what you will about the pretty ones but they know best about handling the wacky ones.

I wildly anticipated the outcome her public statement and eagerly speculated on the probable response of the person dressed like Michael Jackson a week after his death. He slanted his eyes a little bit, with just the right kind of rehearsed smile – which he probably had all things considered.

I knew very well that I was probably expected to wee out in fear and dread of some possibly apocalyptic outcome to see that expression but I couldn’t contain myself and I burst out laughing. The whole thing was just too funny for me. The man, chivalrously advanced her case and speeched out, “This girl came with me and she will now come home with me.” He was superb and I almost applauded in awe.

Then the whole thing went kinda mental. Like I said, me and her, we’ve known each other since she was 14 and I’d say that I know a thing or two about her. Malls, films, tvs, tabloids, pubs, clubs, restaurants, banks, bookshops, atms and everywhere else. She had done them all. This girl had more in her relatively short life than most of you had in all of your long, proud and eventful lives. She just got out of prison.

I think she, and her sober and caring mother, was alone responsible to make whatever decision she should make about her going home. Jacko or no Jacko.

The girl in the very short pants leaped from her seat and loudly repeated the sentence. I wasn’t sure what she said, but she seemed to be saying that she would go home with whomever she wished as the scene went from weird to weirder.The conversations on the different ends were getting hard to follow and only mad men know what to do then.

Her mother looked awful worried. I’ve seen that look before in mothers. Probably my own mother at some point when I pictured her saddened and at ends of what godawfulthings that her son was doing. She didn’t look angry or sad or disappointed. She whispered prayers and asked for God. I couldn’t look into those eyes and not see love. She only wished for the best for her daughter. She whispered that they needed a very certain thing to happen in order to survive. Time costs money. A lot of money.

We blame mothers a lot. We think they were the greedy ones. We prosecute them for daughters marrying at young age. We blame them for the suffering of their own little ones as if we all live in tabloid moments. We hold mothers to lofty ideals where things are very likely to break. It’s okay for fathers to fuck around but mothers ought to be nice and gentle like all mothers do.

Well, it ain’t busy being mothers. I had a shitty childhood days but it’s not my mother’s fault. Dad left when I was about four or so and God knows it’s not easy raising a son like me. It’s a wonder that I managed in any case. I know mom tried her best in an impossible job.

Her mother broke into tears. Literally. It was all very dramatic and at this point we were sincerely concerned about making a scene.

I was suddenly the man of the moment: Jacko was staring at me funnily, angel trying hard to keep him on the safe end of the pub and her mother, sobbing tears with the whole frigging place trying to not looking at us.

I asked for her mother's permission to return her daughter in safety and end the drama, deciding firmly that it was probably time Jacko heard his very own translated obit out loud. I spare you the details but in the end, he was read the riot act properly and stashed in a cab that would allegedly take him to Bandung or something. It was a Blue Bird taxi and we keep the number so nothing bad could happen to him. He wouldn’t be going around claiming he’s dead because he was not but he was sure not looking like Jacko anymore. I wanted to keep his stupid hat but couldn’t think of why I would so I don’t.

I called home to get a few young Jedis to help us with logistics and we dispersed home. I walked her to her car and I probably asked her out. Then we kissed.

This is all very weird at the moment and I should just go to sleep.

Just a little note to all of you crazy fucking weirdos out there: some people just don’t like you.

That really superhot cute little girl in short pants, revealing top, villainous tattoo and seductivist legs is just not into you. Improbable, but it happens. The point being, you don’t have to be such fucking weirdo about it. It freaks all of us out when you do.

Some people will like you, others will hate you but the rest of them will really just leave you alone.
Be happy with your own life. Life sucks less when you’re being nice.

Good night all.

PS: If you're a little sad dude in Bandung dressed up like Michael Jackson and you think this story is not a fiction then you know where to find me. I didn't tell you about the CCTV we have in place and i could do a YouTube video prank that I - and a whole lot of other people - think very funny. Mr. Brightside is being nice and and you should be grateful.
Other than that, please, fuck off.

For everyone else, this is a banal fiction, the illustrious imaginary world of treespotting.

Welcome to my world.

on the Beginning

2009-06-14T02:54:00.002+07:00

Some strange things happened but mostly only good things. I had one blackout this week, first time in some eight months. The weird shit only happens when (a) Samantha is around or (b) I’m in Singapore. Sam is leaving soon and I don’t plan to go to Singapore anytime soon so that’s okay.

I know how the story begins. It just came to me somehow on the promenade of the stars in Kowloon. It was full moon, too. I haven’t start writing it down yet, haven’t got around to it but I have it in my head. I also think I know how it ends though I really haven’t gone into it further.

Anyhow, I’ll fill you in later. We’re off for Macao this weekend. We’ve been to Reno and Vegas together, Macao seems like the natural thing to do. Will try not to gamble her away.

Two years ago. At the moment, I just want my life to go back two years. I was beautiful back then. Easier.

Not that i'm complaing now. Was just saying.

Miss her too. Have a good weekend, all.