The Bird, The Cow, And The Cat

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there miserably in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was.

The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Moral of the story:

Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
And when you’re in deep shit, it’s best to keep your mouth shut.

Tell Me Something I Don’t Know

Fantastic book, and I’m not even halfway done. Sidenote, Athlete is greatest band ever formed next to Spoon.

The Art Of Enticing The Dog

Too often, the thing you want most is the one thing you can’t have. Desire leaves us heartbroken, it wears us out. Desire can wreck your life. But as tough as wanting something can be. The people who suffer the most, are those who don’t know what they want.

I can’t bring myself to just pretend this is going somewhere, when clearly things are so restrained and ambiguous between us. I don’t know where we stand, and what we might stand for in the future, and I can’t continue acting like it doesn’t cause me serious doubt. Its like we’re on either side of a fogged up window. I can’t see much of you, and all I want to do is wipe it clean and if I could, do away with the window all together. Why does it feel like I have a restraining order against me?

I want more, more attention, more affection, more time, but yet I am afraid to ask. I’ve grown accustomed to not having you around, but that doesn’t mean I feel any lesser for you. It just means that…maybe you could try to want me a little more, give me a little more than I need. More is something I’ve never been able to refuse. I don’t say ‘when’. And I don’t doubt its the same for everyone else. More love, more sweets, more anything. There’s always something about the possibility of more.

I can’t keep playing games anymore, and I can’t pretend I don’t need you when I really do. I’m done with hiding, with covering up and pretending. Its time I took this great leap of faith. Yes, I know in the end, I might be the one to get hurt, and I might be the one who ends up on the curb, broken and ruined. But the best things in life, they don’t come free.

Overqualified

In light of the internships coming up and everyone scrambling to get their portfolios up to standard, I’m posting this cover letter by Joey Comeau, the best writer alive. His “Overqualified” series can be found here.

To: Microsoft
Re: Programmer

Dear Microsoft.

Thank you for taking the time to review my resume. I am excited for the opportunity to work for the company that saved my marriage, and you can rest assured that I will give my all. As my resume indicates, I’ve been a computer programmer for sixteen years. Wanda and I were married for eight of those.

My resume indicates my professional experience, which is a good rundown of my skill-set, but I’d like to talk about my personal projects, which I believe show my ability to think outside the box. You see, in the months before I lost Wanda in a car accident, I started teaching her to program.

Those few programs that she left behind were simple, and very often flawed, and they are all I have left of my Wanda, besides her journal entries. She programmed on your operating system, and with a little internet research I was able to make a list of what appliances were running Windows.

It was short work to program each of those appliances with the remains of my lost wife, fragments of her journal, snippets of her programming. I was suddenly living in a William Burroughs romance novel. Cups and plates rattled when I passed, and spoke in their Microsoft-approved synthesized voice “July thirty first. Joey is still spending more time with the computer than with me. I am worried that the romance is gone for good this time. My mother suggests that I pretend to share his interest, so that we can…”

The vacuum drives around in circles in the living room, saying “We must have left the condom wrapper in the living room, but I can’t find it for the life of me. If Joey finds it, how will I explain? Jack says not to worry. He’ll be there to…”

Sometimes, my doorknobs won’t let me inside at night. “September sixteenth. He’s forgotten the anniversary again.” But it’s a success, Microsoft. Not a single day goes by where I don’t get a glimpse of my wife. Not a day goes by where I don’t hear her voice, simulated and authentic at once.

I would be an asset to your company. I look forward to hearing back from you about this position.

Yours,

Joey Comeau

A Softer World

Rain Beyond The Window

Hasn’t been the greatest of weeks, but that’s nothing new anymore is it? The weather has been a bitch, and nothing gets my moods in a turmoil more than lousy weather. Met new people this week, and I can frankly say, year ones aren’t such a bunch of morons after all. At least, Larry, Edison and Joey aren’t. Went for Selegie beancurd, Night and Day, and finally settled at Home, even though it hurt to even think of going there. Shan’t go into it though. But we had a bunch of fun playing truth or dare, eating leaves, finding out each other’s sexual escapades (that one good what!) and doing stupid dares (pinch the bouncer’s sausage!). I guess it was a good thing that I threw my stereotypes out the window.

I’ve been coping surprisingly well, though there are still so many questions unanswered and so many doubts still rippling the surface. I’ve come to think that maybe I don’t need those answers, and I don’t need the explanations for something that was a lost cause from the start. Of course, you’ll always be the one who makes me feel more like myself than anyone else, and nothing comes close. That, I can’t deny. But at the same time, we have spiralled so out of control that I don’t know how to save it anymore, and I’m exhausted from trying. I want more than this, more than what we have now (I want more than just ok) but yet I can’t bring myself to ask, or bring myself to even question why you wouldn’t give something so simple and easy to me. All this back and forth is eating into me, so much so that I just can’t continue being normal. I don’t even know what normal is anymore.

“Communication. It’s the first thing we really learn in life. Funny thing is, once we grow up, learn our words and really start talking, the harder it becomes to know what to say. Or how to ask for what we really need.”

Happy Valentine’s! (assholes.)

The Tale Of The Piles

So I was watching a drama serial just now on the cube and one of the characters had piles, and he did a good job acting like it hurt. A lot. So I turned to my mom and said, “Yeaah like piles could do that to you.” And she decided to turn into Mrs. Piles Encyclopedia, and told me how they hurt like a bitch and when they were tying it back up she almost fainted. She described every single gruesome gory detail and it went through my head like a taser shock. I was BEYOND grossed out. The image of someone’s rectum disintegrating and the doctor “fixing” it just kept replaying in my head till I was almost sick all over the carpet. And then my mom had to break the news to me: “Childbirth causes piles, you know.” I almost died.

Then Dad said, “Nah, just use an epidural and you wouldn’t have to push, the baby just pops out! Mommy wanted to have a natural birth, that’s why she has piles. Hah!” I was thinking, noooo an epidural doesn’t do that, does it? I thought it just numbed the pain? But I knew my dad was smart (so wrong) so I kept quiet. My mom then replied, “That’s rubbish, the epidural numbs the pain but you still have to push y’know? So either ways my dear, you’re bound to get piles at some point in your life. Don’t listen to Daddy, he’s a man. Men don’t give birth.” She proceeded to give my dad the evil eye while he laughed and stuck out his tongue. Yes, my parents are that childish.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. At that point I was still mulling over the sentence, “You’re bound to get piles at some point in your life.” I couldn’t ever imagine having to go through pain in my arsehole and having a doctor peer into it and fix it, however a doctor fixes piles (YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW. SWEAR.) I am traumatised beyond words. I couldn’t stop thinking about it up till now, and I googled ‘piles’ and after seeing one picture I decided I didn’t want to know anything but precautionary steps.

So now, I won’t read while taking a dump, and I will eat my greens. Faithfully and conscientiously. Promise. Swear to God.

Blew half of my earnings from CNY on cocktails and margaritas at Harry’s. And cigarettes.

Need. To. Stop. Smoking.

Peter Panic

Haven’t you heard I’m stuck on a verse
I’m stuck on a boy who fills me joy
I knew I was wrong to jump straight on into this picture so pretty
but he is so pretty to me.

It hasn’t been the greatest of times recently. I experienced my first panic attack on Friday, and all I can say is, the thought of it makes me worry so much I might have another one. Nothing comes close to that feeling, and the thought that nothing you do can make it better, makes it worse. Everything was on the verge of exploding, but it just couldn’t ignite and all I wanted was to be over and done with the goddamn exploding because as crazy as it sounds, the build-up was just too much, much more than the exploding would’ve been. I wanted it to stop, but it wouldn’t. It was wicked as ever, because before it I was a bundle of nerves, laughing even though I didn’t want to, but it was all I could do. I wanted to be sick right on the floor, all over the food, all over the damn cigarettes, but all I could do was to grin. Is this how a clown feels? Is this how he feels when he sees children around him crouching behind their parents because mommy, that painted face scares me. Is this how he feels when he thinks, why the hell am I doing this when I’m scaring the children away?

I need time, that’s all anyone ever says. I need time to heal the wounds, I need time for memories to fade into distant etchings on the barks of trees, I need time to pass into that bottomless hourglass. I need time. Of course I do. It passes, slow and painful as each step you take when you’ve just fallen down. It passes, with each tick of the second hand an aching reminder of that bruise you have to tend alone. But, pass it does, I know it, I’m just hurting too much to want to stay here any longer.

Rachel, I miss you a truckload. Your texts from nowhere are the best things that keep me going. We grow up much too fast, but part of me wants to because I know we’ll one day be sitting at some kickass hotel having high tea and talking trash about our lives. Can’t wait for that day.

A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we hadn’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.

An Interesting Detachment

Trust is not about how much you trust one person or another to do right or wrong. How much you trust another person is a function of how much you trust yourself to be strong enough to deal with their imperfections.

This Takes Effort

Remember how when you were a kid, and you believed in fairy tales, the fantasy of what your life would become. That white dress, the knight in shining armour, who would carry you away to a castle up on a hill. You’d lie in bed all night and close your eyes, and you had complete and utter faith. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming – they were so close you could taste them, but eventually you grow up, and reality kicks in. You open your eyes and the fairy tales disappear. Most people turn to the things and the people that they can trust. But the thing is, its hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely, because almost everyone has that smallest bit of hope, of faith, that one day they will open their eyes and it will come true.

Life wasn’t exactly a bed of roses before you came along, but I was happy. Even though I was only happy-right-now, I was still happy. But when you arrived and stepped all over my turf, and claimed me as yours, I was poisoned with the belief that I could be happy-ever-after. And for awhile, it seemed like it, like that kind of fortunate happiness could happen to me. When things went wrong and you had to make that choice, everything fell to pieces, and what we had broke into more pieces than it was ever made of. So much so that I couldn’t pick them up, couldn’t find all the pieces to glue back together. With each and every time I promised myself to pretend you never existed, you had to call or send me a text and reaffirm that what you really needed was me. Me. And each and every time, I’d present my heart to you, relentless of how many times you’ve hurt it before.

Do you know when to walk away? Do you know when not to take less than you deserve? The problem is, I don’t, and I don’t know how the hell to go about doing it. 

Guilelessly

Friday was a day of quality times spent with quality people. All the pondering, the musings, the neverending cogitations on issues that float on the surface and bury deep down our skin – all worthy because it was the best friday I’ve spent in my life. No intoxication, just giddy highs caused by laughter of the best kind, the kind shared among people who mean the world to you. Everything had a meaning , and its like I’m seeing everything for what it is now, and I’ve uncovered what kind of a person I truly am.

I am neither delighted nor smug to know I’m someone who is a sucker for neutrality in every situation, even though I should be, and I guess the right word to describe it is “afraid”. Being an accepting person doesn’t make me a better friend, it just means that when I break down, I go into a realm so deep that it might be impossible for anyone to bring me back up. It is this understanding that’s making me fret, but at the same time, I’m taking it as it comes. Though I’ve never been a big believer of “I’ll cross the bridge when I come to it”, I guess I need some time to take all this in and decide what to do.

I am thankful for so many things this week. I am thankful for Alvin, Rodney and Eileen, because our day of substantiated conversations have given me so much more than a good time. We’ve never started out as the best of friends, and I wouldn’t say that’s what we are now because I don’t want to be embarrassed if that’s not what you guys think, but I am eternally grateful all the same. Good times to come, I’m sure.

I am thankful for you, because you have brought me back into the light, and you’re keeping me here where the only dark shapes I see is my own shadow. You are what you are, and what you are is beautiful. FTIB, and please keep safe, wherever you are right now.

“Today, I am thankful…”

I am afraid of not knowing who I am. I am afraid of losing who I am. I am afraid…of sadness. Most of all, I am afraid of being the disappointment, being the tragedy that my parents unknowingly brought into the world. I am afraid of all these, and all at once, they seem to be coming true, like my worst nightmare that replays till I am sucked into it. Reality is becoming something that is so undefined and ambiguous, like vapour, which eventually fades into…nothing.

Thank you for having faith, and putting it all in me, even though I might just be the one who wastes it all. Thank you for clearing up the fogged windows…and believing that the shape behind them is the one you want to be with. Thank you…for your little gentle pushes, which never turn to shoves no matter how hard I resist. Thank you for looking out for me, even if I couldn’t look out for you. I’ll try harder, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.

Hey Child things are lookin down
That’s ok you don’t need to win anyways
Don’t be afraid
Just eat up all the grey and it will fade all away
Don’t let yourself fall down.