Something you don't want to hear while you're sitting in a seedy internet cafe where the sound of rushing water is drowning out the Eminem blaring through the cubicals:

"Did you read the instructions? It says don't plug it in when it's wet. Get a bucket."

*splash*

"But I already plugged it in!"

0_0

Whaaaaaah?

If this blog was a plant, it would be dead. If it was a gigapet, it would be sitting sadly on a pile of its own digital waste, whining. If it was a hamstser, it would have chewed its way through the bars of its cage to freedom.

But it’s not, it’s just my neglected blog.

Sigh.

I’m planning on EVENTUALLY getting an internet connection at home. When that happens, I should be here a little more regular. For what it’s worth.

My life is a blur, but this is the only day’s event that stands out in my mind. And yes DO take it with a pinch of salt. I’m being sarcastic.

My ego has taken a massive blow. After 10 years of wearing hijab, telling myself I am just too hot to handle, I learnt the sad truth.

I was wearing a turban and outer scarf combo today at work, looking as my friend said “sweetly flamboyant” (and no, unless you’re a drag queen there’s no nice way of using that word), when I had an accident. My outer scarf, which was guarding the dignity of my stunted ponytail beneath, slipped off.

I, being the idiot, did not notice, and continued yammering away to my female colleague. I only noticed when another coworker walked by at a speed so great I felt a cold draft on my neck. As I quickly reached up to return it to its post, I turned back, expecting to see all the men in my office in a dead swoon, absolutely debilitated by the sight of my long-hidden lock(s?), petitioning for my hand, or even worse, perhaps trying to tear out their own eyes from shame and unworthiness.

Nothing doing.

Whatta waste. Haha.

(This blog entry has been yoinked for a higher calling. If you see it elsewhere, do me a favour and don't mention the blog to anyone. Thanks.)

I have a lovely friend who keeps me in books. She has a library membership and as a treat, takes me every so often to pick out a few to take home, if only for a short while. I usually spend the entire time agonising over a handful that I think I really just couldn’t leave without and wondering at the indistinguishable remainder. It’s hard to try and judge from fragments of reviews, reputation and book-backs whether the book is going to be worth all the others you left behind. But I try.

I just finished reading Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed. I liked it better than Crime and Punishment and found it more readable than The Brother’s Karamazov. It was still a mild sedative every night, but that’s all the better, because it lasted me nearly a week, where most books are consumed the moment I get home from work. But the dude could stand to be funnier. Even political intrigue, philosophical angst and theological confusion have a vein of the absurd in it.

I’d like to have met Dostoyevsky. I think he must have been slightly nuts, because he does insanity with nearly contagious authenticity. And I can’t help but wonder if Russia then really was full of such an amazingly strange collection of humanity. And was it so bleak? And so strange? And yet so much like the world today? And was Dostoevsky overwhelmed by it all, or did it embitter him, or did he find it amusing? Why did he write? And why is it I don’t?

I don’t think I could ever be an author. I don’t know how it is that these people manage to see, absorb and reflect so much of life. That they can be so clarion, and still so very obtuse and cryptic, amazes me. All my attempts at fiction have been too one-dimensional. I can’t seem to surprise or mystify myself. I am just me, trying to tell a story, badly. I see right through myself. My thought processes and beliefs are too cut and dry. There is no element of art or genius.

But I do enjoy others’ writing. So I suppose my lot is to be the grateful and happy audience. What would a cook be without the appreciative to feed? I’m too content being fed to ever really feel the need to write. Now, on to the next course!