AND I MOVE ON

Maybe it's denial. Maybe it's strength. I have no idea, actually.

Yesterday went by in a blur. I took my time doing what I was supposed to do, really going through the motions, really being careful, and I hope I was perfect.

The fact is I hate doing anything repetitive. Lokes says it's natural to hate repetition. I hope so.

Anyway, I went on a game-buying binge yesterday (Pastikan Ori!). You can call it retail therapy except games also let you vent out at aliens and goblins with I-Mod guns and schimitars. My Shadows of Undrentide disc had problems (cldnt install), so I'd have to go change it. Brigitte is asking for more reviews and I told her I'd have to play the games first. She's giving me more than a week but I don't think I should stretch it, which is also good for me so I get to play for work more.

In the meantime, I'm playing Elite Force II, which is surprisingly good. Graphics are quite superb and since I did not play Elite Force 1, being in Star Fleet Academy and all was a real kick. I actually tucked Raev in at 8.30pm and I myself fell asleep with her, only to wake up at 12.30am. I fired up EF2 and played til 3am.

My 'aunt' has gone. After 11 days. I was gonna visit the gynae today but since it's gone, I'm hoping 'she' will return to her usual schedule.

My 'real' aunt is visiting 2 Aug from UK. She and Uncle Francis will be staying with us for a couple of days before going back to BG. Would be fun!

It'll take a few days before I'm my opinionated self again. Having been stripped down can be a blow to your self-esteem, and I need to pull myself together again before having opinions. Justin tells me I'm too emotional, that I should detach myself from my work. I can't. My passion drives me. Without it I am unable to write. How can I not feel?

Ah well. It's the weekend and I'm going to enjoy it with my ever-positive, sunshiney hubby and my silly little girl. You get yours as well.

ONE OF THE WORST DAYS OF MY LIFE

It's been a while since I've been so sad.

I guess it was a long time coming. I've had it good for so long, years in fact, that I had forgotten how it felt to be depressed and have the life sucked out of me so fast that I was winded for the whole day. I cried for a good half hour. I had lunch at 5pm, but had one of my most favourite things in the world to feel better (a turkey ham sandwich). Before that, I saw one of my editors, who made me feel a little better about myself. Picked up Neverwinter Nights' latest XP, Shadows of Undrentide, and what was left of my day brightened a little.

Don't worry, if ure worried. Nothing drastic happened, and it WAS my fault so I have nothing and noone to blame. It's just one of things you knew was just around the corner, looming, but you pretended wasn't there or happening, and suddenly you turn and it sort of pounces at you, STILL managing to give you a scare despite you having known about it at the back of your mind. Just one of those things that you dread would happen and it DID happen.

Lokes tells me it's only human. I guess believing I was superhuman didn't help.

I just wanna chill for a while now. Slater...

HAS IT BEEN 13 MONTHS ALREADY?

Time flies when you're having kids.

It seems like just yesterday when I was complaining about the pain down south as my cervix made way for the impatient baby girl I was to name Raeven. Today, her fingers are making their way to my keyboard. Sigh...

I've uploaded new pics of her for your viewing pleasure. That's Pills, her toy caterpillar-turned-boa wrapped around her err person. She does love to make funny faces.

BTW, Raev was voted the youngest Malaysian blogger by Aiz. I'm so so honoured (and so is Raev!). Sigh *dab eyes* - just hope my host is able to keep this going for eight years, or at least until Raev can read! Warren, do you see this?

I need to get up early tomorrow. Been trying to get this blogging thing working all day. C'yall tomorrow....

ALL FOR THE LOVE OF CHEE CHEONG FUN

This morning, after my hubby had finally left with Raeven for my in-laws' place, I was busy preparing the headlines for MSN (yes, I'm the one getting up at the break of day - together with my sidekick Junior - to make sure you get your fresh serving of MSN headlines every morning!). At about 10am, my handphone rang. It was my hubby. Thinking that perhaps he had forgotten something, I quickly answered it, only to be greeted by a whiney voice.

"I am SO disappointed!" said the man of my house. "The Uncle forgot my Chee Cheong Fun and I had to go because I'm already late for my appointment!"

For five minutes, this gentle giant whom I call my hubby and the father of our one-year old baby girl, bitched about how the CCF uncle, whom he had been patronising for some 17 years, could forget his order. He went on and on about the old man taking his loyalty for granted, about his tastebuds have now been unfairly deprived and cheated for having expected the CCF that never came, about how his entire day was now ruined, all for the love of Chee Cheong Fun.

Naturally, I had to coax him back to adulthood, finally telling him that he could go tomorrow morning and the uncle would no doubt give him double the CCF he usually ordered (six strips of noodles, six 'fu chuk's).

"I risked being late for my meeting just so I could eat the CCF," he finally said resignedly, as if his best friend had betrayed him.

For those of you who are curious as to how nice this CCF actually is, it's really not that great. Being from Ipoh (so you get an idea of my standards when it comes to really good CCF) where white rice noodles are meant only to be eaten with chopped green chillies, crispy fried small onions and a bit of soy sauce and oil, I still do not see the appeal of soy strips and fishcake and fishballs drenched in sweet brown sauce, having sampled my hubby's obsession some four years ago (I'd been in KL seven yrs then and still had not tasted this gruesome 'delicacy'). The first time I ordered KL CCF, I was wondering if the world had gone mad. What in the hell was all that sauce, and where were the noodles?

When my father intro-ed me to Penang CCF swimming in thick har kou (prawn sauce), my fears were confirmed. I longed for Ipoh CCF.

So what's YOUR poison?

ON THE RECORD

Firstly, my apologies for not blogging the last two days. I had deadlines up to my nose. Any of you writers out there use a recorder to tape your interviews and then hate transcribing because you hate your own voice, plus wished you didn't ask some of the questions you did, which suddenly sound quite ignorant and/or stupid (something you don't notice during the interview)? Well, I spent the weekend doing that and must've winced a couple of dozen times, that I had to stop for a while.

Happens EVERYtime.

The problem with me is that I tend to drift. I would be curious about one thing and then another, stray off the agenda, only to return to it to find most of my questions answered. And then you get an interviewee who keeps glancing at his list of questions, wondering if we're EVER going to return, because he's prepared all the answers neatly. I'm far from neat. In fact, I never really liked preparing questions in the first place, because interviews should be inpromptu, right?

Oh well. That's why I could not blog. I was busy wincing.

NEW FRIENDS, OLD FRIENDS

I spent much on commuting this week in years due to the avalanche of appointments for both work and play. Just yesterday, I had to be at four places at once, starting with our Kotaraya bloggers' brunch at Dome KLCC, to which I brought Danny. Both of us got lost for a while because neither of us had an inkling how we would be able to make them out in a crowd of patrons enjoying their Citron Presses and lattes. In a roundabout manner, we located Aiz's number (Aiz being the only person both of us COULD recognise, and yea, I was gonna meet a bunch of strangers without any of their numbers! - typical Jennism) and finally found the whole lotta them tucked away in a 'private room' in a corner of the cafe.

We were an hour late and Aiz was already talking about Project Petaling Street. We tried slipping in unnoticed but that was hard to do, it being a small group. Someone shouted my name and red-faced (being SO late and all), I had to intro my sorry ass with Sarini 'filming' away. Danny was spared, being the tag-along' friend. It was pretty unnerving, finally putting on a face in front of people who may have read your blogs about being a sham and other intimate bits of info you don't really want to acknowledge you thought, much less wrote.

We mingled, talked about the things we blogged about, about blogging, about other bloggers. It reminded me of the IRC gatherings we used to have (what? 5 yrs ago?), where we would meet strangers and talk about things we IRCed about, about IRCing, about other IRCers. It's always so nice to make new friends. It's like traveling without moving (who was it who said that? alanis?), discovering new sights, new sounds, new ideas. Motherhood has definitely restricted my freedom somewhat, making such moments precious.

After the meet, I met Lokes for lunch, and then sped off to cover the closing of Liga Electronica. The turnout was quite good, despite it being a Saturday. When it was over, I rushed home to get the house ready for our lui pao birthday party, where three of my childhood friends would try as much as possible to unceremoniously turn 30.

We spent the night eating Ayamas and Suchan's (is it spelt like that?) famous tiramisu (which has too much nuts, if I may say so - coz I hate nuts), playing a new group game I bought called Taboo (like charades but using only words) and chatting about life at the turn of another decade. I was the only one left in the group still clinging on to my 20-something-ship (I turn in October ;)) - and the only married person there. Having known each other since secondary school, each of us became increasingly candid as the wine poured, questioning marriage, motherhood, each other's boyfriend(s) (I was spared by virtue of Lokes being there haha), growing increasingly agitated and pensive at the same time, stepping on each other's toes and then soothing the sting over with the magical balm of familiarity that only old, old friends have. At the end of it, someone said that we should 'celebrate' properly by drinking ourselves silly the coming weekend. The vote was a unanimous yes.

So yea, it has been a most productive weekend, friends-wise. Thank you God, for old and new mercies.