Memories

Memories are curious aren’t they? Most of the time we put them up on a pedestal and worship them. We put up monuments to them on our walls and wallets, mantelpieces and minds. I have a great memory. I retain more than just little snippets of my life and guard them closely for as long as I can. Sometimes they get embellished with time and sometimes the stories lose parts. But for the most part, I remember. I don’t need momentoes. Cameras and diaries have become an extension of my ego really and Facebook and Blogspot are simply facilitators. I remember so many things. And I like that.

But memories can also be evil. A flash of color, a whiff of perfume, a missed taxi, a sesame bagel. Plane tickets, taxi receipts, movie ticket stubs; random hotel room key cards, a red dress; boarding passes of trips gone by. Sometimes, we don’t need to remember, we want to forget. We have to forget. But how do you erase memories? How do you get rid of them so totally that they do not resurface anywhere, anytime? It’s cruel that something so beautiful can also be so ugly. Something that you hang onto for all your life you also wish you could give away. Another one of life’s paradoxes one might say. Without day there would not be night, without bad there could not be any good. Yes, I say, but it’s not the same.

Memories, these can slowly kill you. Eat you up from inside. It’s all good to when you can put it to good use and teach others about life’s lessons learnt but in order to do that, you have to get them out of your heart and mind in the first place. And that, my friends, is the tough part. Acknowledging the memories. Bringing them to the forefront, and worse still, out in the open. Dealing with things past. Admitting your mistakes and forgiving others. Purging your soul.

“Geez Louise”, she muttered under breath. Standing in front of the door in a little blue shiny dress she thought how lucky it was that the night air was relatively warm for spring. She blew out a stream of cigarette smoke from between her lips. “When will this damn promoter come out and get us?”

Five minutes late she was standing in one of the biggest clubs in the City. So many beautiful people, great music pumping through the sound system, she was ready to get it on. Almost. She was still nursing an Italian hangover from the night before.

She and her friend made their way to the bar and ordered drinks. Vodka cranberry and Long island iced tea were the appointed facilitators of a great night out on the town. Only it took twenty long minutes before she felt the sweet sting of drink in her tummy.

“Bloody female bartenders”, her girlfriend shouted over the music. They look good behind the bar but suck at service”. She was just happy to get her ID and credit card back. “Plane ticket $500. Drinks at the bar $40. Ability to do it again and again. Priceless,” she thought to herself as she tucked her stuff back into her clutch.

Scanning the crowd she tried to find a spot where she and her friend could comfortably stand and get that long-awaited buzz. She especially needed it tonight. Fighting fire with fire and all that.

“Let’s go up the staircase and check out the upstairs room”, she said. As they made their way up, she was well aware that her decently perky butt was fully exposed to all the people below. Not that they cared to look up – everyone was cruising in this place. Frankly she couldn’t be bothered who was staring up her dress. Her only goal was to get enough vodka in her system to beat the hangover aches. She chose to wear a ridiculously short dress. She just had to suck it up.

The arrived on the upper floor and knew immediately that they had arrived in the zone. Pushing their way through the crowd of A+F and American Apparel model wannabes, they made their way to the back of the room. There the two girls from another city halfway across the world surveyed the room with satisfaction. This was going to be another good night.

Two vodkas later, she saw him checking her out. “Little boy”, she thought. “You need to get a tan before wearing a pink shirt.” He beckoned to her to come over and dance with him and suddenly she felt herself blush. Lowering her head to sip out of her straw she peeked at him through her lashes and saw that he was still waiting for her to answer.

“Good lord,” she thought to herself. “You can’t even bring yourself to blow him off. How old are you anyway?” She looked up and shook her head.

He came over to where she was standing. He introduced himself and his wingman and asked all the usual questions. Then he bought her a drink and launched into that dance Americans so favor. The dick-in-the-ass-dance. Having been groomed on dancefloors in Asia and Europe, she considered dry-humping, ass-dancing extremely ghetto. And disrespectful. Not everyone enjoys backdoor action and, more importantly, it prevents two people from doing that almost kissing but not quite flirting while dancing thing.

She loved that.

Also it was ruining her sequined dress.

She turned around to face him, flicked her hair and thought “Ok, let me show you how Euros do it”.

***

Four weeks later, she looked the window of her cab and thought “Plane ticket $400. Vacation days 2. Kissing him again. Priceless”. How her heart beat in anticipation.

It Feels Like Tonight

I want to fuck Chris Daughtry. I wonder if he actually taller than he looks on screen. But no matter. I have suffered the vertical challenge before and the old stereotype is true. It really doesn’t matter when you are doing the horizontal dance.

Back to Chris. Never had a bald man before but I am always up for a first. And up to now, I have always been partial to musicians with long hair. But his voice is so sexy and he is just the right balance of yum and un-pretty. He sounds exactly the way looks – you what I mean? What About Now indeed. Too bad he is married. And we all know that I am so not going that road ever again.

Other than that, I really like the music. I guess in today’s speak it’s called emo-rock or some shit like that and I like that shit.

Yes, I finally got my new iPod up and running and I am getting off on my music again. I know loads of people who tell me they cannot work while listening to music. For me it’s become essential. Music helps me focus my thoughts and inspires me to do more productive things other than checking out what happening on Eastenders.

What is it about Eastenders that I love so much? Maybe it’s the banality of life that I try so hard to keep at bay. Reminding me, never to fall into that trap.

It’s so easy isn’t it? To fall into the trap of metro-boulot-dodo as the French say. The kids, we all say. We have kids and a husband and a career and this takes up all our time. Is this true? Is this a reason to just throw in the towel? Maybe I judge. Maybe I am just too harsh. Just because it’s not something I want it does not mean that it is not right for others.

Which leads me to wonder then, why did I spend so much time chasing something I didn’t really want? I don’t want the house in the suburbs. The standard holiday schedule you can plan you waxing appointments around years in advance. The nights of cooking dinner while baby slumbers peacefully. Once-a-week date nights in that special restaurant by candlelight.

The fucking white picket fence that I just want to kick.

So why is it so hard to let go?

Dreams Lost

The orange cone burnt bright in the darkness of the night and she took a deep drag on her cigarette.

She gave him her heart and her life. Her everything. The last year saw her going through emotional turmoil. She knew that this caused tensions in their relationship but she explained them to him. And she thought she could trust him.

“Aren’t the ones who love you supposed to stand by you no matter what?”

The tears fell harder as she thought about the last seven years. And how never once in that time did her heart turn on him. It stayed steadfast in love. All through the roller coaster ride that defined their relationship, her love for him was and still is, unwavering.

She turned to go back into the house. She stopped at the threshold and flicked her cigarette into the darkness. She wiped away her tears and watched the sparks fly and fade slowly into the night before closing the door. “He is gone”, she said to herself.

---------------------------------------------------

Thinking about him brings a smile to her face. She thinks to the time he looked at her with hunger in his eyes and told her exactly what he wanted to do with her. She grins thinking once again about his innocence which she finds so endearing. They talked about falling in love. They both immediately denied the possibility. Later though, lying in his arms, he told her she was beautiful. And smart. That he had the memory of every inch of her body committed to memory. And that of course he could fall in love with her. She kissed him deeply. That was all she could do with her throat choked up with emotion.

Looking into his green eyes, she saw a man who was vain and difficult. He obviously had a past he didn’t want to dwell on. But she also saw a strong, vulnerable man in need. A man who was kind and caring. A man who could love like she loved. A man who was big enough to take her on.

As she nuzzled deeper into that magic spot between his shoulder and chest, her thoughts flew fast and free. It was only there that she dared to dream. Dream about how good it could be. And as she succumbed to fatigue, that familiar ache in heart appeared to lull her to sleep.

AAHAHHAAA!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR one and all!! I finally got back Internet connection at home which means i can continue my life in 2006 in pictures entry. WooHooo!!!

Stay tuned!

Wishing everyone health, wealth and happiness in the new year!

Big kisses...

A long post ahead

Its been really tough for me to get on a PC these last couple of months which is why I haven't been able to update as often as I could. So i have been writing bits and pieces here and there and trying to upload whatever I can whenever I can.

Anyway, the following post was done over the last two weeks or so. It'll come in two parts - here goes:

So what’s new…hmm…loads….loads and loads….

I have been horrible about updating this blog this year for a number of reasons. The main one being that I have been really uninspired to write.

Why have I been uninspired to write? Hmm…that’s a question I have pondered this last week or so. I guess the easy answer is that I have just been simply uninspired. Nothing to write about. Don’t know what t write about. My life, afterall is so boring.

But then again, that’s not quite true. I happen to think I have quite an exciting life actually. I work. I go out. I travel. And I have some interesting err, extra curricular activities. Wait, let me change that. I USED TO have interesting extra curricular activities. But even so, I still do many things.

Don’t believe me? Let me just show you. In words and pictures. From this year.

Let’s start in February, shall we?
February marked my new social life. Met some nice new people and started going out drinking and dancing again. Around end of Feb, early March, I was introduced to the music of Stereophonics. Good band. The lead singer has THE sexiest voice ; ).


This was taken at a place called the Orangerie. It was a really fun evening I remeber

March
I went to the prestigious LSE in London for a week to do a shot course on Regulation. Was pretty cool and it was nice to be able to hang out with Gloria in a different, “i-am-only-here-for-the-weekend-so-must-make-the-most-of-it” fashion. The only downside the was the food in the LSE teachers cafeteria (I really cannot imagine how disgusting the food in the students caf must be) and the dinky hotel room I stayed in for 6 nights. The most awful thing about the trip was that I missed Chiara desperately.


Dinner at Marketplace...you wouldn't believe what time we ended that night...shame...

April….
Easter holidays with Vivian and family. We went to Orange – as in William of Orange – in the South of France. Ok, so it wasn’t really our first choice but it was a good halfway point between Toulouse and Geneva (by car). You see, as usual, we are so bad at forward planning, that taking a plane was really out of the question. Also, Carla was still pretty small then and it was nice to have Vi’s helper, Hadijah, with us.

It was really lovely. It was cool to spend time with Vi and the girls, and also meet little Carla for the first time. Chiara totally fell in love Tia and still keeps asking to see her. I hope we can do it again next year.


Yup...now we're mums...ehehhee


Easter egg hunting in the garden of the Mas we rented...had the place ALL to ourselves...was great!


Tia and Chiara playing...Chiara absolutely loved jumping on Tia


Aunty Vi, Carla and Chiara


Babies in a buggy


Little gals ready to go biking

Then came May. Hmm. I remember going for a great pre-World Cup party here in Geneva.


Pre World Cup party at Bypass

And oh! I also went to Milan and then Rome for a weekend.

Splendid stuff.

Milan as usual was great. Meeting Gigi was as usual fantastic and we finally got closure on our story. I don’t know when I will ever see him again but I have to say that hearing his girlfriend was going to move in with him in October really broke my heart. Why you ask? Well, he was one of those that was on my “The One” list I guess. We just had such bad timing. Aries men and Leo women. What can I say?

Meeting him for the first time in two years was really bizarre (The last time we saw each other was May 2004 when I was there with Jude and Glo – yup, I was seven months pregnant). It’s like we had seen each other just the day before you know? And that certainly didn’t help me feeling more like shit when we left each other at the train station. But what can I say? I had choices to make and making choices is what I did. Now I am going to stick by them. Eventhough I sometimes dream about the gorgeous Italian wedding I could have had. Yeah, I wish.

So after Milan, I went to Rome. Shopping eating, more shopping and more eating. Some business meetings chucked in between. I didn’t stay in the centre of Rome this time but the hotel was certainly not as far as the one I stayed in the second time I went to Rome. Hehhe.

Rome was fantastic. I saw the most handsome busker on Piazza Navona playing his version of Wish You Were Here, Angie and other classic rock songs you can play when u only have your electric guitar, amplifier and beautiful long black hair. (hmm, sound familiar anyone??).

I have to say that that night was one of those magical nights that will stay seared in my memory for as long as I have it. You see, for those of you who have been to Rome, you will understand the magic of Piazza Navona once you overlook the cheesy tourist-ness of the place. It was pretty late at night and most of those tourist trap restos were closed leaving the square to be beautifully illuminated by the two fountains, Neptune and the Four Rivers.

This guy started strumming and a small crowd, mostly made up of young Italians, gathered around and started singing along. In a short time, the small crown grew to about one hundred. And everyone was quietly sitting on the ground, or standing in the arms of a loved one and singing along with this lone six string and its beautiful master.

It was truly magical.

Oh and by the way, my love affair with Stereophonics kinda petered out around here as well.

Then came June and I was lucky enough to have been able to travel to Scotland. St. Andrews to be precise. You know, where, the lovely young Prince William went to Uni. Yeah, there. We had a week long global meeting there and I took the opportunity to spend a weekend traveling around Edinburgh and the Highlands. Now say what you will about the UK, but we were blessed with fantastic weather and I have to say that Scotland blew me away. The first time I visited the a place in the UK other than London and I have to say it was fantastic. The highlands are really magnificent. Not quite the same as Swiss scenery so it’s difficult to compare. People are ridiculously friendly and we even had really nice food to eat. Loads of seafood.

I would definitely recommend anyone coming to Europe to go visit. I think the trick is to go in summer. When its warm and (maybe) sunny and you can stand outside any bar, resto, pub to have a smoke (smoking bans in public places you see). Rent a car and just drive.


Check it out…me actually shooting a rifle…I was pretty damn good at it too…hehhe
I have another onr of me shooting a bow and arrow - another sport I found out that I am pretty good at

The meeting went really really well as well. For the first time in my life since I started out on my “career”, I was actually shit scared of giving a presentation (workshop to be precise). I don’t really know why to be exact but I was nervous as hell. I actually practiced my speeches in front of a mirror and things the week before I had to deliver. That morning I was sweating away in my suit but I have to say that I pulled it off. It was a resounding success! Hehhee. I hardly drank at all that week at the after meeting festivities. Too much pressure. But on the last day, I did join in the revelry and got properly pissed (well, as much as one can get at these corporate gatherings) and released the pressure.

June also marked World Cup time. My goodness me. Too much screaming, excessive beer drinking and loads of sun contributed to June whizzing by.

OK, will end here for now. The monster in the bed is huffing and puffinf at my tip tapping nails. Sometimes I could just kill him. Really.

Second half of the year coming up real soon.
Ciao ,lovelies. Hope you enjoyed the pictures

London bloody London

I must have broken some kind of record this weekend. Spent the weekend in London and DID NOT, I repeat, DID NOT go to a single bar. Did not put one toe in a club. Niente, nada, diddly squat.

I did, however, go to a super fantastic party on Saturday and Fergus’ place. It was a blast. The guy really, really knows how to throw a party and my goodness did we all have a really good time! I felt really bad about not helping out more though.

The most embarrassing happened this weekend. And it’s soo go to do with my Ms Cutlery self.

(If you don’t know about Tweety’s Ms. Cutlery side, well then, you haven’t known me long enough so I’m not gonna tell ya.)

Anyway, after coming back to the apartment from shopping, our kind host told us to tidy up the bedroom because we would have to keep the room open in order for guests to use the “facilities”.

So Glo and I busied ourselves putting away the mountains of clothes, shoes and other girlie stuff which inevitably littered the room. After getting almost ready for the party, we proceeded to clean up the bathroom. As usual, I put all unsightly and potentially dangerous things away, including the bag of toilet rolls which were on the floor. I did however, leave 2-3 extra toilet rolls for when the incumbent rolly eventually ran out. All this stuff, including the dirty clothes basket (I didn’t want to risk some druken reveler mistaking it for the basin and vomiting into it), went into the multipurpose cupboard. Anyway, before I make this short story too long, our host was hanging out in the room with us the next morning when he saw Glo take out the stuff from the cupboard including the bag of toilet rolls.

He then exclaimed, “Did you HIDE your toilet rolls in the cupboard??!!”

Me being my usual blur cock self replied, “Of course lah!” and thinking these bloody ang moh all damn stupid – want to put Molton Brown handwash in the bathroom for the party guests but EXCLAIM over bags of toilet rolls being put out of sight.

When it suddenly dawned upon me. I nearly burst out laughing. Just not sure if I was laughing more at myself or at him.

So I told him, “I put them away because they looked so unsightly on the floor.” (As opposed to hiding them so that people won’t use them all up, thus leaving us to clean our intimates with fish & chip newspaper for the rest of the month).

And Glo very helpfully chipped in, “Yah, but she did leave some extra rolls out”.

Good grief. Exit stage left, Ms. Cutlery.

Did manage to do some shopping and I bought a lot of stuff for Chiara. The little cutie pie was trying on all her stuff this morning when she woke up. Hehhee. Taking after her mum, she is. I am so proud.

Anyway, that was my weekend. Good stuff. And the weather was lovely. Thought my outfit at the party rocked as well. Heheee.

PS: I am now 57kgs. I NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT. I cannot, repeat, cannot wear my clothes anymore. It’s not even about squeezing into my pants. Its about not being able to button them up. It’s about being a bloody size 12 but not owning anything in that size. And having my boobies spill out of my D cup bras. I need help.

Yup, she did it again….

She walked out of the building feeling completely annoyed and frustrated. She had had a bad day. But bad days seemed to happen endlessly in recent times.

“Something’s gotta give,” she thought to herself as she walked to the bus stop. “Something HAS GOT TO BLOODY GIVE!”.

She turned up the volume on her pink iPod. Guns ‘n’ Roses blasted into her ears. She hoped that visions of that paradise city would blot him from her mind.

Two months ago they kissed for the first time. It blew her mind away. Not because it was particularly good but because it actually happened. No motives. No prior counts of flirting. No nothing. Just empty beer cans and bare feet.

“Goddamn red dress. Truly the devils’ color,” she mumbled under her breath. But she couldn’t stop a little smile from passing over her lips.

Her thoughts were flying fast and free. Like Adler’s sticks over those drums.

She thought about his clumsy hands all over her body. Trying to reach for something he did not quite know how to get to anymore. She thought about her own thoughts at that moment. And the screaming sirens in her head. And how she hadn’t the willpower to make him stop. And now that she thought about it, she hadn’t really wanted him to.

She hadn’t dared sleep with him that night. She crept out silently long after the sun rose.

And woke up the next morning with a banging hangover and butterflies in her tummy.

Typical.

True to herself, she mooned about him for a couple of weeks after that night. Listened to silly songs from Shania Twain and soppy movie soundtracks. Even got a copy of Stealing Home off Amazon and watched it on a lonely week night.

And then one day, the bubble popped. The hunter instinct in her knew she caught her prey the day she caught him sneaking a look at her in her Sienna outfit. She knew she looked hot that day and obviously, he did too.

That did it for her she firmly turned the page.

It was time to move on to other cute furry animals out there.

Or so she thought. She should have known better. “Oops I did it again” was stuck on repeat on the CD player that is her life.

So two months later, she found herself wrapped in his arms, in his bed, kissing him softly in post coital tenderness.

She had decided to throw caution to the wind. Besides, she hadn’t quite known how to turn him down either. Another typical character trait she wasn’t proud of.

They had slept with each other on two consecutive nights. Both times were sweet, tender and affectionate.

He didn’t quite have the body of a Harlequin romance hero, nor the finesse of Daniele the helicopter pilot from Rome, but he was gentle and sincere. In fact she found him almost innocent in his guilt. And he kissed really nicely.

“Grrrrr”, she muttered as she shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. “Grrrr grrr grrr…aaarrgh!!!!”.

She turned up the volume to full blast on her iPod in another attempt to blow him out of her head.

“I wonder where this road will end”, she thought to herself as she ran with open arms to kiss her daughter hello.

Feathers on my lips

The softest kisses in the world. That’s what he gave me. The softest kisses ever. Was he cute? I don’t know really. He certainly wasn’t ugly. He had a cap on. Which he never took off. Even while he was giving me the softest kisses in the world.

I wish I could have more of them. But he is leaving forever on Friday. I don’t know where. I can’t remember. As always, I was shrouded in a haze of bubbly and making conversation was not the foremost in my mind. His feather kisses blotted everything else from my mind, body and dare I say, soul. At least for those two hours.

Feather soft kisses. His tongue like cotton candy. His skin so sweet and smooth. His gentle hands unmoving on my face. An angel. An angel in that dark, stinky underground box.

Feather kisses from an angel.