Deep Blue Somethings

I never thought my first college romance would be this painful.

Actually, the correct phrasing ought to be 'would have been that painful'. It was, after all, in my first year that I was careless enough to fall. I tried not to, remembering my track record with these types of affairs but I'd thought that college would've been a fresh new start. Where I wouldn't be stupid enough to make the same mistakes.

Then again, 'romance' isn't really the correct term for something so one-sided. A friend of mine got to him first. As they giggled and made goo-goo eyes at each other over mugs of Starbucks, another friend of mine asked about the inspiration behind my FictionPress piece Never. 

"If I may ask." She looked me in the eye, over the gap in her veil. "Anyone I know?"

"No."

My first lie of my first year at college.

The happy couple broke up a few months ago and I've been repeating the same lie to myself like a mantra to ease the old flames away. Fanning away the flames of more trouble as his head accidentally brushes against my shoulder in his sleep.

No, No, No.

Never. 

Nothing new but I wish I had a little more freedom of choice. I think everyone deserves the right to make their own mistakes and learn from them. As the clichéd saying goes, 'What doesn't kill you...'

A few months ago, I had a talk with one of my friends about summer jobs. She'd enjoyed hers so much that she was even considering dropping out of college to pursue it full-time.

"A lot of people tell it takes guts to stay in school but I sometimes feel it takes the more than guts to drop out of school."

That's exactly what she told me that day. Anyway, she stayed on and finished her degree while I still have one more year to go. It would be great to be a travelling poet or a hippie in the Seventies. They lived free, got messy and had some great stories to tell.

I always thought I was a small-town girl at heart. I like where I live but there's only so much the city can offer. I like certain parts of it, like how it looks on the cusp of dusk and how you can find ten people of different ethnicities in one street corner

But...

Maybe I'm just missing the big picture.
 

At the moment, I'm just a few pages away from finishing Kate Mosse's Sepulchre. Great read, if only a little slow at first. I've developed quite a taste for historical suspense, possibly propelled by the wonderful The Thirteenth Tale which I read a few years back. Also considering rereading some of my old Dickensian favorites like Bleak House (yes, I got through that tome and thoroughly enjoyed it) and Great Expectations (which everyone seems to hate). The latter, like another one of my all-time classical faves The Count of Monte Cristo, touches on money, power and revenge, three things the average Scorpio appears to crave. Guilty pleasures, those two.

Odd as it is, I like picturing myself as Edward Dantes. An innocent sailor plunged into suffering for his innocent good luck. Losing hope, despairing, then escaping his prison and reinventing himself as a wholly new man. Seeking to avenge himself by bringing those who had wronged him to ruin. Sure, I'm the wrong gender but a Classics buff can dream. And as wrong as it seems, Pip and Estella from Great Expectations beat out Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy for my favorite antagonistic couple in fiction. Yes, yes, completely wrong and toxic if you've read the book but I'm the girl who rereads Of Human Bondage for the same two characteristics as portrayed in relationship played out in larger doses.

I think my literary tastes could use some refinement. My most read author happens to be Robin Cook. Not that his writing style or characters hold any interest for me but probably to compensate for the lack of thrills in my life. Like every girl, I've read through Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott. I did read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment but found it so dreadfully tedious. I have heard good things about House of the Dead though so I'm not entirely giving up on him.

Prolonged absence has been due to me visiting my country of birth Sri Lanka and hence, the lack of a reliable internet connection. I'm currently touring Kuala Lumpur and making the best use of wireless signals as I can. Great place, so far. Young, hip and lively. My Grandfather - my Kake (pronounce 'kah-kay') in Malay - would have hated it. He passed away when I was ten. Living in the UAE for most of my life and getting to go visit the extended family only during my summer break, the most clear memory I have of him is that he used to love sitting in the creaky old rattan chair by the window and read the Sunday papers. It's me who sits in the chair and reads just about anything to pass time now. I've been told I look a lot like him.

Looks aside, I have also inherited the silence. Kake, my dad's father, was a man of few words. As is my Dad. And me. But I'm the wrong gender to be allowed the simple pleasure of containing my thoughts. A good middle-class Malayu girl must make good tea and conversation while playing the piano with deft hands. The tea I can manage, the piano is a lost cause and the words are still committed to secrecy. But they've gotten used to my quirks and call it 'cute'. Apparantly, my cheeks are too full and rosy for standard young adult sulkiness.

So it's five to twelve in KL and I'm trying to conjure an image of a man I barely remember. He wasn't one of those grandfathers who always had some cup of wisdom to offer. Definitely not someone who carried me on his shoulders and pretended to be a horsey. Not since the stroke he had before I was born. I guess it must have been the presence, the stillness of time he conveyed, that saved him a place in my overflowing Pensieve bowl.

Odd things, these thoughts are.

Funny how one thought can lead to another, until you almost forget how ended up thinking about what you're thinking in the first place. I guess, in retrospect, that last sentence is going to remind me of a line from Alice in Wonderland.

I don't know about falling through rabbit-holes and the like but childhood seems like a series of weird disjointed memories in technicolor, with nothing but the two-bit tunes of Atari games and petty arguements. The chain started off last night when I was watching a playthrough of, all games, Earthworm Jim (hark, the good ol' nineties). About maybe... ten or more years ago, I remember playing the very same game at a friend's place. It was a summer thing: in the Gulf, beaches are unthinkable at this time of year unless you're willing to risk heat-stroke. We'd stay inside and play the old-school classics. Maybe the same stuff that any of you have: Street Fighter, cat's cradle, 2-D Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, live-action TMNT courtesy of plastic toy weapons and flashy martial-art moves ripped off from Saturday cartoons (I always got to be Donatello. The smart one), Abe's Odyssey (after which we'd lie awake at night, not daring to admit to the other how scared we were of falling asleep), hide-and-seek in the dark which we were banned from soon after too many scraped toes and bruised foreheads...

It's like a deluge for a while and then it suddenly dries up and I'm left here contemplating a blank screen, fighting down the writer's block. As much as I hate to ask, is digital ink ever enough when you can't feel the words form beneath your hands? 

Scorpio

People who borrow their pen and never return it - Nah, not really. Unless that was my only pen.
Lovers that don't orgasm - Lol, wut?
Being made jealous by a lover - True. But who does?
Being outshone at any task - Nope... not much.
Dining without dignity - Pardon?
Being the victim of gossip - I don't really care, to be honest.
Being accused of being unfaithful (even if they are) - Being accused, yes. But if I was guilty, I'd be hanging my head in shame.
People who are too trendy - ... what is that?
People who claim to be psychic - Yeah
Not being able to park in the handicapped space - Nope

Lolz much?

Target of Irritation: The Tekken Fandom

I love Hwoarang, adore the guy to pieces and forgave Namco for their foul taste in clothes in T6 when I watched his ending in the same game. Still, the hotties always attract the biggest flies. The one that almost made me swat at my computer-screen in a fit of mind-numbing *headdesk* is this poser courtesy of the pile of crap she excreted here

Just check out this cretin's profile:

'i'm emo/goth'

Yeah, girl, YOU BADASS!! I suppose you like headbang to 'emo/goth' bands like Good Charlotte and MCR and slit your wrists when you read my review to your turdbomb mentioned above. Thankfully, she didn't list out anything more which could have put her reputation at stake. Well, anything apart from the regular fan-girl interests: Naruto, Death Note, etc

I've gotta go send a warning to these poor fandoms, already filled to the brim with trashy Mary-Sue romances as they are. 

I'd almost forgotten how great it could feel to make someone happy, if only for the smallest of reasons. Maybe that's why I've been dreaming of blizzards and snowstorms lately, because I've forgotton what the warmth of a real smile feels like.

Over the last few months, I've been interning at a local magazine Abu Dhabi Tempo as part of a summer internship deal they offered me. It's a bimonthly magazine so I'm not under as much stress than I was at Gulf News which is a daily broadsheet. The editor is really cool too. She sits cross-legged at her desk and is literally the type of boss that asks their employees how their sick hamsters are doing. No kidding (I hope HamHam gets better soon, Aicha!). But she's one tough cookie too. There's a certain degree of cockiness one has to possess if they want to fool her.

But back to the point. This isn't about work. This is about smiling and the lack of it on my part for the past few weeks.

"Smile for the camera, please!"

Rosalisa, delightfully Italian and making up for her lack of English with more pizzaz than more eloquent I know, grins with her mouth closed and her fingers in a 'V' sign. It's been a while since I've spoken to anyone so colorful in a white dress and dark sunglasses. Haven't spoken to anyone so alive before a camera. Not an avatar or a screen-name or a virtual mask on a computer screen but a person so real and full of her zest for life that for the few minutes that we spoke, when I noted down her answers to whimsical questions made up on the spot, the sun was shining and I wasn't faking an emoticon smile of my own.

La Bella Vita. The Beautiful Life.

Thank you, Rosa. For a thirteen and a half minutes, you sure spent your light's worth.

It's actually more Sasuke-centric but Naruto and Sakura are there too. If you squint.

Title: Requiem for the Sun
Character(s): Team 7
Rating: G
Requested By: xdespondence 

It's warm where he dreams, under the golden light shining through the leaves. 

I think Patrick Stump does not get the attention he deserves and that Pete Wentz is a fugly little bugger.

Moving on...

... well, not actually...

Some good music going by FOB. For one thing, I never tire of their song titles. And Panic at the Disco's (why'd they drop the '!'?) Camisado is on replay in my mind at the moment. I'd post a link or two but the boss is prowling around somewhere in the editorial room and I don't want a smudge on my sparkly record from getting caught visiting YouTube.

Still, inspiration is good inspiration. Posted the first chapter of my new multi-chap on FP entitled 'Alkaline Drop'. Anyone who's heard that name somewhere before should give me a shout-out and I'll change it. I swear I've heard that title before but I just can't remember where. Or whom.