About Life & Living

If I could live my life again,
In the next I'll try to make more mistakes,
I won't try to be so perfect.
I will be more relaxed,
I'll be more full than I am now.
In fact, I will take fewer things seriously,
I'll be less hygenic, I'll take more risks,
I'll watch more sunsets,
I'll climb more mountains,
I'll swim more rivers,
I'll go to more places I've never been,
I'll eat more ice creams and less beans,
I'll have more real problems and less imaginary ones

I was one of those people who lived prudent and prolific lives,
each and every minute of his life.
Of course I've had moments of joy,
but if I could go back, I'll try to have only good moments.

In case you don't know, that's what life is made of: moments.
Don't lose it now..

I was one of those who never goes anywhere
Without a thermometer,
Without a hotwater bottle,
Without an umbrella and without a parachute.

If I could live again, I will travel light
If I could live again, I will try to walk barefoot
At the beginning of spring, till the end of autumn
I'll ride more carts,
I'll watch more sunrises and play with more children
If I have the life to live, but now I'm 85,
and I know I'm dying.
--- Jorge Luis Borges

Weekus Horribilis

There were not a few moments this work week when I would have traded places with anyone, just for some tranquility. Don't get me wrong, I love writing. It's the non-writing part that sucks.

I've been hounded all week by this ad industry wanker -- phone calls, emails, voice mails -- you name it, all because he wants us to write about a non-event he is organising that's coming up (no kidding!) SIX months later. Is he going to keep at this for the whole six months?

He's tried to get me to his office "to discuss possible questions", and arranged a midnight phone interview with some guy several time zones away (Not Jude Law, unfortunately, so no deal).

At times, I try to act polite and professional, "act" being the operative word. Then at times, I feel like screaming at the deluded wanker:"Get out of my hair! It's not up to me whether or not to write about your non-event, coz if it is, the answer is no."

Thing is, the guy has been filtered several management levels down, and I, um, don't have anyone below me to delegate this to. Darn!

And just when I thought the week couldn't get any worse, I fell down, flat on my face, at the office car park at night, while talking on my mobile. My heels got caught in some gap, and body tumbled, bags flying. Not my chic-est moment.

My knees and elbows are badly bruised, and limbs ached like anything. My mobile phone survived the fall better than I did though, coz I could still hear my dear Mellissa on the line, going:"Hello? Hello? Are you still alive?".

Moral of the story? Buy Nokia, but resist giving your mobile number to rude wankers.

Let's hope the coming week is a lot saner than this.

A Love Less Ordinary

"The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."
--Carrie Bradshaw

Carrie knows good sex. Erica knows good food. But when it comes to knowing about love, you have to hand it to the Italians. To prove that they have virtually patented the idea of l'amore, they have a gazillion terms to define every nuance of a relationship.

What do you call "someone I'm seeing but I'm not sure we are seriously committed"? Ragazzo/a.
What about "a significant someone who's here for the long run?" Fidanzato/a
See? In English, we lump it all under boy/girlfriend. "Fling" doesn't really work coz you cannot seriously introduce him/her to your friends like this:"Hey, meet my fling.", without sounding a tad, um, offensive. While you're at it, would you call an ex-fling a "flung"?

And then for relationships that are more fire and passion than anything, the Italians have the term l'amante. And of course, you may possiby go on to become sposo/a (newlyweds) and marito/moglie (husband and wife).

In a restaurant, we very rarely order a dish that has no name. But we often enter into relationships that we cannot define. Weird, inconvenient, out-of-the-ordinary alliances. Apparently, the English vocabulary has not expanded as fast as the complex new hybrids that love has spawned.

Maybe defining stuff isn't that important. What matters is you know there's something there. Why spend precious time trying to fit a circle into a square box? Will it all work out better if it had a name?

And what do you call a friend who became a significant other you've since broken up with but are still sort of dating again? Ah, the Italians are still working on that one.

A Drop of Heaven

"God created economists to make weather forecasters look good."
Anonymous

Can't help but feel that someone is watching over me this week. When I was caught in a major downpour just outside the office one evening, an umbrella magically appeared before I could curse my luck.

When a biggish story landed on my lap and I had no time to eat dinner, some kind soul sent over "roti boy" bread out of nowhere.

When I've lost hope in ever having a social life, the sweetest people start popping up for drinks and long chats.... even all the way from Bangkok!

But then, Guy Upstairs works the other way around too. We got totally high at the wine fair on Sunday ( and I have a dozen drunkenly-purchased bottles to show for it. Okay, now there's only eleven left. But that's not the point.)

Hangovers, my darlings, are God's ultimate way of saying that there's a price to be paid for everything. No words can describe the pain that hit the Monday after. No words except maybe, "Thank god for panadol".

Why, Raymond Carver and Dorothy Parker did their best work in collaboration with alcohol. Hemingway's most immortal lines in "For Whom" was a tribute to the joys of absinthe for a man working the trenches during the war..... As for me? Well, let's just say alcohol did not turn me into a literary prodigy. In fact, it made writing Monday's story harder, not easier.

Ah, that's the difference between mortal writers and literary gods.