just minishorts.

This is a very old post and I'm reproducing it with some changes to reflect the new bits in me…

I am still the girl you knew when she was only 12. You knew me as that 'tall for her age' girl who used to strut down the old canteen walkways, holding a soaking oily, crispy chicken drumstick in her right hand and shouting at the top of her voice over the din of the recess crowd, 'Uncle, uncle make it 1.50 lah, every day I buy from you one.'

Exactly 12 years later it's the year of the monkey again, and chicken drumsticks don't go for 1.50 a piece anymore. My tastes are still the same, I still like soaking oily, crispy chicken drumsticks a lot. I go to McDonald's and I ask for my favourite Crispy Ayam McD, 'No breast meat, give me the thigh and drumstick area please,' and boy, I wish I didn't have to give a damn about fat and cholestrol.

All right so another year on and McDonald's doesn't have it's Crispy variety for the chicken anymore, but I still love the OR version they have at KFC and I'm still willing to wait for them to come up with fresh pieces… if in any case they ran out of them.

I still like sprinkling lots of salt and pepper on my large fries, and I still talk at the top of my voice sometimes. They used to tell me to lower my voice a little, an index finger to the lips and eyes wide open like that. When you do that I will still wave my hands around my head, because an imaginary film of heat seems to have enveloped me in that moment.

I'm independant, yes, but I'm also dependant. I like to rest against a passenger seat headrest, and close my eyes and soak in that momentary bliss of peace. I'm assertive, yes, but I also want you to assert your rights. I want to be asked, not initiate movements to be asked, I want to really say no, not pretend to say no and then smile so that you'll beg me to say yes again.

I'm obviously happy that you understand, I've been looking around so long for someone who would understand… and then when I finally decided to stop looking because it was such a pain to keep on hoping, you just appeared, and you learnt, you knew. I'm glad to be given the space to be both dependant and independant at the same time, and I'm blessed that you know just when to allow me both.

I still like strolling down crowded pasar malam walkways and smelling the horrible stench of chao tau fu at the end of the road, I still like looking at sparkling zircons that they display on dark velvet-like holders, and dream of the day my destined one would give me a 0.5-carat piece, that bead of sweat forming between his brows as he tries to sound brave, and eyes, really meaning the things that he will say to me. I'm still that dreamer, I do believe in love at first sight, and watching too many HK serials makes me still hope that one fine day, a nice and really cute guy would approach me at a fast food restaurant and ask for my phone number. Okay, so I'm older now and those dreams usually come true if you're still 16…. it never did happen when I was 16, but I still imagine.

Somewhere along the way I met a guy who offered me a drink at the local mamak stall and then I thought, oh my, how Malaysian. And it still thrills me to bits everytime I revisit the old nooks and corners of my Memory Lanes.

I still write sad things, as we grow older experience makes us wiser and more frequently melancholic; but I write happy things too. I still plan to say things like this, and then end up saying other things at odd angles… and usually, still, I won't even know what I'm saying when I'm done saying things.

I've learnt to swear, more recently, but it's nothing to do with being bitter. I'm more in touch with being honest now, and I've learnt to not take everything into my pocket and store them there for too long. Things decay, and nothing ever lasts forever… but I'm still the one who keeps the treasures for as long as possible, and keep them in check so that they look pretty for as long as possible.

I want to be yours truly, and then when I really think about it, there's no need to want for anything. After all, I am still yours truly. Very, still, truly.