just minishorts.

I saw a whisper of the past yesterday, somebody which I never used to share ideals with, perhaps because we were such different radical thinkers, although I've convinced myself that I'm more accomodating to change that he is.

In pages long lost you could hear his cries for companionship, the wish that there was someone he could pour his heart into, and leave the fears of a troubled reality behind, and just be.

I wanted, almost wanted, to reach out and tell him why it was like that, the way things were.

I think it's like this: sometimes when you're so conceited in your own 'successes', you misguide yourself into thinking that nothing is ever good enough for you, that you have to have nothing but the best, when in all honesty, you're just NOT good enough to have the best.

Or maybe, your notions of 'the best' isn't really the best, it's just something that you have led yourself into thinking, much like surrounding yourselfs in a circle of people who will worship you, when you're not really deserving of that kind of attention.

I remembered a long ago discussion, a forum which you labelled one before, previously, you said as the facilitator, 'Say it out, we're hear for an open discussion, all ideas will be accepted and mulled upon.'

Oh for sure, we weren't expecting that, or at least, I wasn't expected that at all, but I sure as well didn't expected to be labelled ignorant, nor someone without your ideal visions. All I did was disagree, and then, it wasn't just me. There were a few of us, and all we did, was not agree.

I had a passion once, and this whisper was so lethal, it killed almost all of the passion I had. He made me stare upon coming years with disgust, and helped me decide that that path I initially wanted to take was just not the road to be taken.

So when I saw your laments about why you didn't have anyone to understand your feelings, and your needs to find someone to throw your worries into, I wanted to reach out, but I didn't. And then I thought about it, and I wanted to tell you, 'You need to want to let people reach out to you first, because your strong barriers are stopping people from showing how they could care for you.'

Then I remembered we've said it too many times, but he was just too conceited to listen to us.

I thought I'd leave a piece of this.

We were being pensive over dinner the other night, I said it was a treat for him–in celebration of the new old car. New, because it's something he's just bought; old, because it's a little bit over 12 years old, and needs plenty of fixing up.

And then I told him about the coming year-up. He grinned and frowned, 'Eh, it's over, we've celebrated it!'

I didn't recall that. 'When?'

'November 15th.'

Astounded, I was. How clear he could remember? ButI remembered different–that couldn't be.

'That's not right! It's the 29th of this month, I recall it clearly. We weren't together yet!'

'Yes we were, November 15th was the day you told me we could see each other seriously, and see other people too at the same time. You said it wasn't time.'

Oh, and it was because I had just walked out of one relationship then, a little over a month before, and I didn't realize that it was actually possible to fall for another again so deeply.

Or maybe I didn't know it then that 'again' didn't quite make the cut as a descriptive.

Actually, it was for the first time.

And then we laughed, and dinner was quite amazing. What is an anniversary celebration? Quite unnecessary–we see each other every day, and yet every day it still feels as if it were the first time.

I am trying to make a life out of reasoning reality, but I'm no where near there. It's like this: you're here where I am, knowing that things are different different. You look back, flip over the old pages and you saw the past: oh it was great, uniforms forced you to conform, to create equality, and equality is good, good.

I mean, it's a non-existent concept, but it is NECESSARY to make things happen.

Not that things are not happening now.

On the contrary, everything is just running all at the same time, and then you stand in your place, and watch the shadows rush past you, as you try to desperately grab a piece of the fabric that sweeps past the apples of your cheeks.

You hardly endeavour, because you know you're no where near anywhere.

…

You sit at a corner, and remember her. Who? Suddenly she's someone, amazing, famous, you see her face on TV, and you say, 'Hey, that girl's my senior. I knew her once.'

Or, it could be the other way around, you see him, someone you've snubbed, over five years ago, 'I'm sorry, you're not good enough.'

OK, you might have been kinder, 'I'm sorry but this is just not the time.'

You might have made him hope, 'I can't say yes now, but I don't know what will happen in the future.'

You shattered his dreams, you broke his heart.

Today, you find him again, photos. Connections. He's made it. Oh it's not just the qualifications, or the promising career that welcomes a brilliant future, it's also the lip-smacking six-pack abs he displays oh-so-proudly in the photos: you wonder, 'What if?'

But that 'what if' remains the invisible steps of a choice you could have taken over five years ago, except, it remains that just. A 'could-have' choice.

SO you try to stay where you are and move at your own pace, and you remind yourself, 'No. I wouldn't want it otherwise.'

So today I took the remaining part of the garland we had fixed from the ceiling at home and made this little tree to spruce up the scene at the office.

The colleagues started singing 'We wish you a merry Christmas', while I tried very hard to make my USB drive work. Nah it didn't, not on my computer. I tried it on a colleague's comp, which forced the flash to do reformat itself, and my wanglihom MP3 album got deleted, along with my 8 files of An Animal Story. I'm not quite sure if I have all 8 documents of the novel still saved up in my house's computer, but let's just hope there is a copy.

I'm calmer today you know, I'm not so angry anymore. Actually I'm calmer these days, maybe because the changes that have occured in my life–the new things I found out about myself… not like they'll change very much of me, nonetheless… I don't know. I've stopped asking why now? Why me? Why has it got to be like that?

But then I remembered that there are many things, not available for us to know, so why must we find out more?

So, back to Christmas, and what was that you wanted already?

A few questions, or really, there's just three:

1) What are you doing this Christmas?
2) If you could have anything (material) you want for Christmas, anything at all, what would it be?
3) If it could not be material at all, then what would you have?

I like Greek Tragedy. On Greek Tragedy, you come face to face with the internal arguments of a woman running her life just like any woman does. Except, Stephanie is excrutiatingly honest:

I begin to wonder about the last time I really made out with a guy. Men are visual creatures who respond to physical stimuli. Want to turn a man on? Grab your breasts with one hand and his dick with another. Bonus points if you call it a cock and tell him how much you want it to be yours for the night. But women are more cerebral. Yes, we want the “I love you”s and “God, you’re beautiful,” but we also want him to boss us around a bit. When I say “we,” I mean me, but I’ll still say we, just incase. We’re too busy being professional and assertive in our everyday lives, trying to prove ourselves in the world as women. The bedroom is the one place where we don’t want to have to be in control.

If you didn't know that site, it's a blog by Stephanie Klein, who's so cool over on the other side of the world, she's got contracts to write her own novels. Thanks to her blog. And that's cool.

I'd like to write like Stephanie too. I think most women can relate to Stephanie, after all, most women who blog dare to be vocal and expressive in their emotional realizations have blogs that are crafted in that manner–except this: over in this side of the world, women bloggers like Stephanie are hard to find.

For one, sometimes, as a woman, if you blog about the realizations of your sexual awakening, you get raised eyebrows, and people wondering if you've done it. You can ask a silly question to the public like, 'Do you think I've done it?' and you'll get strange responses. A lot of strange responses from a supposedly conservative society.

Like the other day, I said it carefully, 'I commited my entire relationship to Him.' And that meant God, why would it mean otherwise? But some people have to think it's because I've gone and popped my cherry. Wow.

So much for being conservative, eh?

I don't want to call it pathetic, I don't want to call it silly. I don't want to give the scenario degrading namesakes.

I just think its differen yet the same–our themes, Stephanie's and mine: our themes are the same, yet because of where we are on Planet Earth, our themes have to be different. My themes have to be different, distinctively, even though I identify with her in many ways. And in many ways, I want to be like her, be able to write the things she writes, be truly open. I want to.

But really, there's nothing wrong in wanting, and thinking that these things will happen. I like Stephanie because she's raw, she's vocal. She talks about her last time making out with a man, the sexually charged emotions that you get when you're alone in a room, with a guy you love a lot. That you almost want to marry. She talks about the kind of feedbacks she wants to hear when she strips naked in the bedroom with a man she loves, the little thrills she gives him when he 'unbuckles her jeans and lifts her top' and she blogs about them. She talks about her conversations with her family, so close, so close, I wanna write them like she does, I know I can, but I can't do that because my readers aren't open enough, aren't mature enough, aren't serious enough to see beyond the 'cheap thrills' of 'she's talking about sex'.

You forget that even without having sex, I am entitled to wonder about what could happen, what would happen, because it's natural for a woman, for a human like me to wonder. Because YOU WONDER TOO.

I can try to almost become Stephanie, but I can't really. Like how I want to write about the guy I almost want to worry, but I can't. I want to write about the women I want to be like, but I can't. I want to write about how I imagine it must be fun to french kiss a woman, but I can't. I want to talk about my angers and frustrations about the long-gone pasts and my struggles to live on in the present despite regrets and living past regrets, but I can't. They're all so privy, so how can I be open?

I can almost be, but almost only, because I can never be too sure. Usually, never-be-too-sures are concepts that you finally get a grasp on after your heart gets smashed once, or at least, once.

The thing is, why can Stephanie talk about her Greek Tragedy, and I can't talk about my Being Minishorts in a truly, truly cathartic manner, the way that you won't raise eyebrows and whisper strange things like, 'What a self-appraising attention whore she is.'

Or she's pretending to be a woman of the world, showing off the things she can't be on her blog.

You even forget it's my blog, mine, mine, mine, and by right, you have no right to dictate what exactly I ought to write in my blog.

The truth is, even if I'm merely pretending, someone tell me just what is so wrong with pretending because I don't really know. I don't smoke, I can't really drink, I'm not all that interested in going around in strange social circles, and I don't mind professing to being a busybody most of the time. I am a busybody-what, I'm a woman, duh, duh, duh!

And my worries are real, just like yours.

Hence why I can't be so vocal anymore. Because it's not safe. And hence, I have to be superficial. And hence, and hence, and hence.

Someone said that it's a once a month thing–maybe. It was the first day, and Eyeris guessed it right. Someone else said that I've got to be less explosive on monstrous days, because more people read me now, because I should be careful of what people think, I shouldn't, burn bridges. I want to be like that, however, why should I be? After all, maybe that was my reasoning–I didn't want to allow too many people into my life right now–it's overcrowded as it is, burning bridges can be an option you know, when those people aren't who you need. (And at least you know I'm sincere and I don't like to lie)

At the end of the day, it is my blog, and another reader said it right, because you should have known, should have known, I wasn't talking about you, but siapa yang termakan cili, dialah terasa panas, did you think I'd be concerned enough to think about you, much less, blog about you?

I'm sorry for misleading your memories.