told manja I was a bit bogged down so she offered to to my  taxes for me.

ashin. (chomelnya baby face with glasses.)

look he’s sleeping, like a cherub.

wtf. since when was i this attracted to any chinese guy??

you know it’s love, when you can overlook that the object of your affections is named… monster.

oh ye of dexterous fingers and perfectly ruffled hair.

oh, you’re so cool when you leap and bound across the stage with that serious expression on your face before you break into a sunshiney grin.

mmmm… yeah, rock that guitar.

“did you know, grasshoppers and other performers like aaron kwok tape their dicks down?”

i choked on a spoonful of shredded pork and chinese mushroom rice. “to avoid wardrobe malfunction?” i wondered, thinking of the shiny tiny hot pants favoured by mr kwok.

“it’s because they will, y’know, ‘stand’.”

i sputtered a few grains of rice onto the table.

“you mean you’ve never heard before meh?”

do enlighten me on the hong kong entertainment scene, dear pickway.

“guys,” she said knowingly, smugly and triumphantly, “get hard when they’re tired.”

my whole life flashed (heh) before my eyes. i felt like a high school-er again.

“my boyfriend runs marathons, and he told me that when he and his friends finish running all tired like that, it gets awkward… cos you know.”

boy, was i confused. was i sorely lacking in the sex ed department? was she pulling my leg? was this something everyone knew? was this a rawang thing? i mean if only exhaustion caused erections. pfizer would go out of business.

*conversations originally in canto, yo. which makes it that much more hilarious.

so malacca is, in the loosest sense, a home town of sorts. sketchy family history about supposed baba nyonya heritage, teochew wanderers touching points along the west coast, and the annual ching bing (qing ming to you) trip which i’ve never participated in, all tie me back to the state. plus i am head-over-heels for the lard-soaked chicken rice balls. probably the strongest proof of my heritage, methinks.

closed my eyes and picked two cameras to accompany me on the trip: the beloved LC-A+ and the paradoxically under- and over-rated golden half.

expired centuria dnp lends a rather strong purple haze to all photos (tested in a few trial rolls) which i’m not particularly fond of. i guess despite my occasionally pink hair, i’m a conventional girl at heart.

the weather was blazing, which just screamed for a fixed-speed toy cam and a tribe toyota brolley.

how obliging.

overpriced baubles and the throngs of KLites aside, the town has also fascinated me with that delicious creepiness old abandoned buildings have. as you peek through a crack in a mildewed door, you start pondering the “whys” “hows” and especially the “whos” of this dilapidated shell of a house, even expecting to be greeted by an unblinking otherwordly eye (because that’s what always happens in the movies, ok).

these place are supposedly unclean but with my starbucks-numbed senses i couldn’t and haven’t felt a thing. maybe just a little imagined loss and despair which in all probability stems from me trying to inject some romanticism into my yuppie life.

still, annual pilgrimages to the place has made me a little sick (though we could pin that on the horrid horrid satay celup).

chicken rice balls. check. st paul’s church. check. techni trishaws. double and triple checked. eye on malaysia. maybe not. baba house. hmm. cendol. check. geographer. limau limau. jonker after 8pm. it’s as if time elbowed its way forward just to stand still.

a sparkling, gleaming white tomb of a 500-years dead and gone and forgotten malay warrior. i dare you to make sense of that.

but then again, i’m merely rambling, waiting for my hair to set. which it just has.  i wish i were a peranakan princess.

<3

Are you a professional journalist? You write very well.

i’m flattered.

I liked it. So much useful material. I read with great interest.

and finally,

Hi, I discovered your web site a number of weeks ago and have read all the posts and comments slowly. I decided to should post my firstcomment. Not really sure what to say but anyway. Great blog. Will come back in a while to hear what else you have to tell me.

stalker spambot!

alright, going to bed now.

R2D2 speakers

cup of pencils + cutter + pens + ringgit notes + cuticle pencil

Balvenie single malt empty bottle

staedtler water colour pencil box

blue felt car brooch

heart-shaped sunnies

white faux wayfarers

singapore maps

moo moo notebook

black + red nail varnish

nail varnish remover

2 ikea plastic cups

sony t33 digital camera

3 rings (black/red set from hk + silver daily staple)

lomolito box + instructions

r.a.salvatore thousand orcs series

red heart necklace + bead art casette necklace

golden half chelsea maika box

meds from last doctors visit

pp photo shop evelope

CD sleeve with 2 photo album CDs

can of shieldtox

white skull candy low riders

mikona flash

small tub of vaseline

couple of black plastic ties

USB card reader

house keys

car keys (with attached pepper spray)

shark bag (with nintendo dsl)

yellow lighter

cow lighter

single, lonely cotton pad

hur hur hur. so pun-ny.

justine:
you run on stupid more like

1. i started smoking at age 13
2. but only started really drinking at 23
3. which is also when i started wearing makeup and buying clothes
4. i’m less angry than i always appear to be
5. i’m fucking soft-hearted
6. and very gullible and super naive (italics for emphasis)
7. so i’ll forgive you almost anything if you apologise (even if you’re lying)
8. i’m initially very judgmental when i first meet someone
9. i despise showoffs (i really. don’t. care.)
10. if you’re good to me, i’ll be your most loyal supporter
11. i wouldn’t mind having a father who was never around but supported me financially (as opposed to having no father at all)
12. i have teochew peranakan ancestory
13. my grandad owned a local advertising agency
14. i have a goldfish memory
15. i find it hard to fall in (and out of) love
16. no matter how nice you are, if you can’t do your job adequately (see, i hold you to low standards) we can never be fucking friends
17. i was once in such a bad stage, i planned this tattoo: “odi et amo, excrucior”. how fucking emo.
18. if it ain’t evident already, i swear so much i’m not even really swearing as much as i am just speaking
19. i can only drink beer or vodka
20. because in high school i drank a lot of herbs ‘n food crap (i.e. saheep, thaisong, etc.)
21. a homeopath chiropractor once told me my asthma fucked up my back
22. when i got my ears pierced (at 7) i ran around screaming after the first side was done and swore to never repeat it ever again
23. i proceeded to get multiple piercings later on: 15 ear, 3 lip, tongue (twice), belly (DIY)
24. i have paper journals dating back to ’95 *CRINGE*
25. half the time i’m arrogant, the other half i struggle with self esteem issues