Today I made rice pudding, and other tales…

i’m pretty happy now. so i thought i’d share what it is that makes me happy:

• warm, clean sheets (ideally straight from the dryer, but that’s in a perfect world). in a cool, clean room.
• hot chocolate. preferably in cold (maybe rainy) weather.
• long drives at midnight with my ipod and horace.
• chocolate. and cake. or chocolate cake (i’m really not fussy).
• the perfect contentment of.. well… contented (as opposed to depressed) solitude
• new books, full of promise. or old books, full of memories.
• a snuggly hoodie.
• cuddles (hugs to the non aussies).

in other words, happy birthday, birthday girlie! we love you muchly and miss you more!

I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks that cracking joints sounds like breaking bones. But I still crack them anyways.

I hate cleaning up.

ok, my HTML fail. Dave Fenton would throw his hands up in disgust.

it is so bloody hot. i’ve been lying in my room all day, alternating with the airconditioner in the living room, and the small portable in my bedroom. But the small portable needs to keep me alive at night, and chews electricity. and the outside one doesn’t really reach my room.

so i’m literally melting, resorting to ridiculous outfits to not generate more body heat, and generally not enjoying the aussie summer the way i’m supposed to. bah humbug.

but just to keep the earlier HTML content cuz it amused me so much, sondha = Seductress Offering Naughty, Delightful, Hot Affection

I’m so gonna regret this when I have to wake up at 5am, but inspired blog surfing has turned up these nuggets :

“A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ get together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.”

“Regrets are a waste of time. They’re the past crippling you in the present.”

my defense is that my pre-twentysomething neighbours have just pulled from the beginning the semester toga party, and are now making enough noise for a legion of cats fighting. *sigh*

also, what better to accompany the insomnia that begets the evocative and inspired beauty of eating chicken noodle soup from the pot, in a (beautiful and new, although quite warm) bathrobe, while scratching mosquito bites.

No, don’t answer that.

I’m a little bewildered by life, to be honest.

Sometimes, there’s an abundance of… happenings. Dramatic moments, existential crises, and just an overwhelming muchness of life moments.

For those who know, the moment has finally come. And it was really really hard, and sad.

So after this time of happenings, I’m hoping and praying for a little time to myself. A time of reticence, of reflection, of healing and contemplation. To know myself a little more, and worry about others a little less. To stop doing and start thinking.

Sorry for the downer. We will be back to regular programming shortly.

in the past 24 hours, i have made several observations:

nobody is (or i should say not many people are) as happy as they’d like the world to think they are.  And while happiness (and normalcy) are overrated, i think that the ability to simulate at least a passing level of happiness (and normalcy) are fundamental qualities required to live in a populous society such as ours.

Thus  when a person, god-forbid, experiences loneliness, anguish, or plain confusion (and does not decide to confuse others in that confusion), the first instinct is to do one of two things: rant, or pretend that everything is dandy.

this interests me as a social phenomenon purely because both exacerbate the problem. ranting drives people away (and creates their own world of loneliness/anguish/confusion) and pretending everything is dandy internalizes the problem, which any first year psyc student can tell you is a nay good idea!

Hence pretense is the name of the game. But energy wasted in this game, as well as that wasted in playing hard to get, and other really strange social conventions, could be better spent… getting to know people. Getting to know yourself. Learning life skills, which might not make money, pay happiness dividends. Circumventing the need to really pretend to be happy.

So here we are today at the most celebrated day of love. How lovely.

I want to write words of bitterness. I can’t.

I want to say never again. I won’t.

Till then, it’s just… the hamsters of madness and me.

(more…)

Does anyone know a good recipe for authentic kweh lapis? It’s starting to unnerve me that while I have been the lucky recipient of many a cake, they are all inevitably of the same kind, a bit on the dry side and not enough spice.

I need to get up and cook. Nothing like a tasty morsel to tempt the soul.