Are You Borrowing My Time?

From Wong Kar-wai's "2046"

Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi): I don't understand why you carry on so with women. If you meet one good woman, isn't she enough? Why delay time?

Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung): A man like me has nothing but time. I need to find people to meet my needs.

Bai: You treat people like time-fillers?

Chow: Not really. Sometimes, I lend my time to others.

Bai: What about tonight? Are you borrowing my time or am I borrowing yours?

(It's like a violent slap in the face whenever a filmmaker/writer perfectly senses the pain of his audience and beautifully translate it into air-gasping pictures. Speaking of borrowing time, as we all live in borrowed time, why don't we all look at every encounter, every romantic experience, every sexual escapade, every pain of separation, or every loss of love as no more than “time-fillers” - to save us all from heartache after heartache after heartache?!)

A Stolen Kiss From The Past

Out of floating in euphoric mid-air of watching 2 good French movies and trying to practise my newly learned French, at almost midnight I texted an old friend from college who does speak the language.

I told him I didn't see him at Le Festival du Cinema Francais that day, while I had usually bumped into him at such event. Then I asked if he's interested in seeing other films the next day with me. After a few times opening my French books for the correct verb conjugations to be able to exchange texts in French, he finally pronounced a yes.

He and I have always been more than just classmates in Spanish class back then, I guess. I didn't exactly remember how or why he started to flirt with me, but I actually enjoyed every ride home with him or those times we escaped somewhere when he successfully got me into skipping the afternoon class. Soon it all boiled down to other rendezvous, almost on weekly basis, including steamy sessions of making out in his car.

He's a lot of fun, while I've always been a fucked up girl with a bunch of psychological issues. I think I somehow hurt him by saying I wasn't interested in having a relationship with him but I didn't mind making out in the car once in a while. I know, such a slut I was! After that declaration of prostitution, we didn't see each other much anymore. What's left from those hours spent in his car was several flirtatious texts per year or a sudden phone call in New Year's Eve when I was busy making out with someone else. That was it.

So yesterday was the first time we spent time alone again after a million years. The small chairs in the theater couldn't prevent me much from feeling his warm skin on my bare right upper arm or his warm breath on my earlobe whenever he passed comments on whatever he saw on the screen. I was almost sure I could feel my nipples erect and poke through my sheer T-shirt.

When the first movie ended, we headed for a nearby food joint to meet a friend who I was going to see the next movie with. On the way, he told me that he needed to go to his car to fix the bent front tires of improper parking from running late to see an old stock. Instead of going ahead to the cafe to see my friend, I walked him to his car - still the same, old car we did all our double X-rated scenes in.

He told me to hop in the car which I did without any hesitation, while he put the ignition key to move the tires. As we both sat quietly in the car, we couldn't help being nostalgic. He teasingly asked me if I still remembered everything ever happened in that very car, which automatically burst loud, nervous laughter from my mouth. When I was still busy looking around the car as trying to bring back all the carnal scenes in my head, his suddenly manuevered to mine and landed a rough kiss on my lips. I didn't see it coming, so it was deadly startled the hell out of me, that my instincts made me push his head and resist his kiss. He then held my face so he could plant his lips on mine properly but I kept on struggling. And when he finally moved his head away, I just wished he wouldn't give in so easily and kept kissing my hungry lips more against my will. (I guess rape scene has always been my fantasy!) While he was still breathing heavily, he grinned and said: "For the old time's sake!"

Damn!

We ended the day with a promise to see each other again next weekend for a drink. When I teased him if he was going to try to make me drunk so he could steal another kiss, he just laughed. But I could somehow trace a hope to re-enact our long forgotten lusty episode. Or was it just me?

Anyway, since so horny am I, next week it is!

A Dream Upon A Siesta

I know now why people shouldn't take an afternoon sleep like the Spanish do. Not only it will screw up their night's sleeps, but it will also screw up their minds. Well, mine, to say the least.

While waiting for the clock to strike 2, so that I could leave for Le Festival du Cinema Francais, I fell asleep upon watching some crap on TV. Not until 5 minutes afterwards, I dreamt about J. It's funny that when I left him, I thought it wouldn't be this hard to move on to my next best thing. But I was wrong. This thing never gets any easier.

I reckoned in the dream we were at some tropical place, for the sun was shining brightly and there were green grass and trees around. I was in my white summer dress and a wide fuschia hat like those of worn by the ladies of British royal members at polo games or when having a tea party with the Queen at the rose garden of Buckingham Palace. I was standing at a wooden balcony when I saw J - in his peach colored Lacoste polo shirt - sitting in a chair under a luscious tree. He waved at me enthusiastically as if trying to make me see him.

I, of course, saw him but I didn't know why I looked away and pretended not to see him, while all I wanted to do was wave back at him and run with all my might to where he was and throw myself into his arms. Something held me back. My ankles seemed to be chained with a pair of heavy, black stones used by Pirates to drown any crew members trying to do a mutiny. So I just turned my back and walked away from the balcony.

And I woke up in tears. I guess I just missed him. And since I couldn't do anything about it, the longing went to my subconscious and appeared in a form of a dream.

THIS, is never easy.

Discrimination

Whenever I eat at some modest culinary joints which don't have any exact measurement for the amount of rice should be served to each guest, I don't know why I'm always given half portioned rice. I didn't even open my lips yet to ask for less rice than my male companions. So I wonder if it's my body size speaking for itself: "I'm fat so I need to be on a diet that I only eat little rice!" or it's my femininity conveying an unspoken message: "I'm a female so I don't pig out!"

Each time given half portioned rice, I always have to send back the rice and ask for more. And each time I do that, the waiter would giggle and say: "Oh, I thought you wanted to have half portion!". And each time I respond in anger as trying to cope with the insult: "Did I inform you that I want to have less rice?", he would defend himself: "But any other females ever coming here usually eat half portioned rice, so I thought you were one of them". And when I want to snap whether I look like all those regular females, he might reply: "You think you're special, eh?" That would surely be enough for me to admit how correct he is. And each time seeing this sort of scene, my male companions could only look at me in amazement.

So what? I'd rather eat enough amount of lunch which my stomach decides - not someone else or in this case, waiters or restaurant owners - than eating less but by 3 PM I need to cheer up the worms again.

I do eat much and I'm not ashamed of it.

Meaningless Things People Do

A text I found in my silent-mode cellphone when my thumb was about to press 'general' mode button at around 9 this morning: "Guten morgen, Frau Ivana Humpalot..."

It was sent at 7:07:10 AM from the last person on my mind I ever expected to say such thing to me. For a moment I was overwhelmed.

What's with people sending lovely texts at odd hours? Why? What's the objective? Was he so horny in the morning that all he could think of was inserting himself into me? C'est impossible! Was he twisted and turned from thinking of me the whole night that all he wanted to do first thing in the morning was reach out to me through a text? That's even more impossible! Did I remind him of Kristen Johnston, who plays the Russian babe, Ivana Humpalot in the movie Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me? I think not. Did he look at a fat bear on his cereal box when having breakfast that he just realized it looked exactly like me? That's the only thing possible.

However, the early morning text cracked a smile on my lipglossed lips, though not for long, cause I know how meaningless it was.

Separate Beds But Not Separated

There are things I've never thought of ever being in my approval, but then I ended up giving them a nod. Take long distance relationships for one. Or caucasian lovers. Or sashimi eating. Or pubic area shaving. Or ever going to India ... 3 times. And the most recent one given my seal of authorization is separate beds.

I thought I wouldn't live to see the day I would finally agree with separate bedding, which previously I found it ridiculous. What's the point of couple having 2 separate beds in one room like those of married couples in medieval period, right? Right. That's what I used to think too. But considering the fact of how low-next-to-nothing divorce rates, then I started to suspect the magic of separate bedding. Besides, often times I heard about fighting couples sleeping in separate beds with the hope of calming the nerves down and finally, sorting the problems out.

It's true, though, how people need some time alone in their togetherness. And that's what separate bedding provides. They still can be together in one room without intruding the spouse's personal space. The man, for example, still can check out a porn magazine behind a newspaper, while the wife can paint her toes without having to tell him to lie still, for every slightest move he might make will crazily maneuver the brush. You know how nowadays toe painting can lead to calling up each other's divorce lawyers.

Not only that. Nobody will have to bitch out who's to make the bed, for each person is responsible for their own. Well, when lust calls in, they can just simply pick a bed. And ah! With 2 double beds in the room, imagine how many variations you can venture in terms of bedroom games! It's also true what they say about absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Experience has it that there isn't any single comfortable moment sleeping in each other's arms. Believe me, that only happens in movies. In real life, not only you will wake up with sore muscles, but you will also wake up with a horrible mood. Why? Because the whole night you will surely be awake with each and every move your spouse makes, that you will have to adjust your sleeping position with your partner's. Just abandon the right to sleep peacefully when you're trying to live up a scene from a romantic movie. (You want to do something romantic? Take the garbage out and your woman will at all time be your doormat and sex slave!) And you also know what happens to people waking up with such a good mood from a good night's sleep. Go figure.

Hereby I suggest marriage counselors to start prescribing separate bedding for those trying to save their marriages. And hereby I predict the sale of single beds will sharply increase in the near future.

And more on a personal note, hereby I wish to regain my lost faith in marriage and decent men by renewing the hope of ever finding someone I can share separate beds with. Someday...

Hatred Is In The Air

As my age multiplies by minutes and seconds like HIV outbreak, both consciously and unconsciously I've expanded a very long list of those things I hate. One time, when Father and I went for a drive and my mouth just couldn't stop criticizing most everything I saw along the way, he asked why I was so hateful. He even wondered if it's because he and Mother hadn't raised me good enough, nor given me the adequate share of love I should have had.

To lessen his guilt, I told him that he's just so lucky to be able to cope with so many annoying things in this world. Like maybe he could deal with a newly-wed girl friend baptizing herself with the husband's last name writing a posting in a mailing list: "What could be more wonderful than having your husband making you breakfast every morning?", or a shopkeeper curiously following every step I make in a fancy boutique, as if I was going to shoplift that over one million blouse if for one second she blinks an eye, or at a first encounter people shaking my hand weakly, while their eyes not looking into mine, nor listening to my announcing own name, only a few minutes later they would ask me to repeat my name. Well, okay, people do forget names. That's not a big deal. But avoiding a glance when you're offering the hand is like doing something having the exact opposite meaning of what it has to be.

I'm sorry, Father, I can't handle all those things without radiating my hatred.

And particularly this handshake matter is, yes, very intolerable for me. I can't seem to comprehend why people bother to do the routine of shaking hands if they don't really want to do it. I think they'd better cut the crap, rather than giving a too weak handshake, which I find it very insulting, as if I was offering a smelly hand I've just been using to pick up my nose and forgotten to wash the remaining buggers off my finger tips. While too strong and too long is just revolting. It's like that particular person - especially if it's a he - is trying to convey a naughty code: "Let's find a cheap hotel room and let me show you what I've got between my crotch!" But the biggest crime in a handshake world is shaking hands with eyes roaming elsewhere - ranging from the eyes of the other person at my boobs, at a piece of chili skin stuck between my front teeth, at someone else more beautiful standing next to me, or even at the most talked about celebrities happen to pass by.

I can deal with someone's wife holler at me as calling me names existing in animal kingdom or a set of thesaurus for the word "courtesan". But no, I just can't deal with lousy handshakes without eye contact.

Father suggested me to see a psychiatrist, for he thought I needed help to cure my anger and insecurites within. But since at this point in my life I didn't live on his earnings anymore and I, of course, preferred to spend my own on fashion items, or gastronomic pleasures, or return tickets to somewhere than paying a phony Jung hourly, I quickly threw his suggestion away.

Then he suggested: "Why don't you go get married? Maybe all the anger and hatred came from your repressed sexual hormones!"

And that surely shut me up.

Oh no. Do I sound like those typical old spinsters I've always avoided from ever resembling?

Embarrassable Me

A good thing I can derive from my work is free-flow of the best wines available at any cellars I happen to stop by.

Last night I was stranded at a wine bar to review their so-called exotic seafood salads. The appointment was actually at 1830 hours, but the person I should've met didn't show up till 1900. So I ordered a Ruffino Wine from the heart of Tuscany to wet my dry throat from struggling in a traffic jam battlefield. As I sipped the chilled golden liquid having fruity aroma, I was convinced how life every now and then tried to rub my back as telling me to shake off those sorrows away.

A few gulps later, the German chef I should interview finally showed up. As he presented me with 5 exotic salads from all over the globe, I couldn't help but recognize how he looked exactly like J. My heart skipped a beat. I didn't know if that's just my mind playing tricks on me or it was merely a wishful thinking. I had met him several times before when I stopped by at the hotel, but I had never been this up, close, and exchanging more than 2 sentences with him.

However, they do have the same brown eyes and brown hair. Only the chef doesn't have any grey hairs ... yet. They have the same hairdo too. They even have the same way of talking. The same gestures. The same expressions. To shake off the nostalgic thoughts, I just kept on drinking while trying hard to pay full attention to his explanations.

By the time it was a wrap, I didn't have any idea how much I drank that glorious medium dry with earthy flavors and a suggestion of pear, fading to a crisp and balanced finish white wine. My head was so very light, but I had to keep conscious to be able to drive home safely. For that reason, at a traffic light, I texted 2 of my good friends telling them how heavily drunk I was. One was sent to the right intended person, but the other went to an F&B Director of a 5-star hotel who happened to have the same last name with my friend's.

I wish I had never been born at all.

Schoolphobic

A colleague with a teenage child confirmed me with her stories how expensive education can be. She wanted to send her kid to the Catholic girls school I used to go, but she couldn't afford it. Here's what she had to hear from the principal, who happens to be a nun. A nun, according to my naive understanding, is somebody who has mastered Christian teachings which are based on compassion to one another. But listening to what my colleague told me has ruined that understanding.

In a new parents meeting...

The nun:
I don't want to receive any parents in my office this week, because I know they would only beg reduction for entrance fees. Parents, if you don't have enough money to send your children here, well, you'd better take your money and come back here next year when you've had the exact amount you have to pay. And so you know, our school is a non-profit institution. However, there won't be any students whose montly fee is less than Rp 500.000 or entrance fee less than Rp 10 millions. Is that clearly understood?

I'm at an all-time ashamed of being one of its graduates. I'm also at an all-time ashamed of ever being born Catholic. Her stories only confirm my lost faith in both formal education and religion. I learned better about compassion from my dogs. And that definitely doesn't take an expensive school!

Confession

I have a confession to make. Even though I've been trying to ditch A in any possible way, I had to admit one thing. When we sat down face to face and talked, the competitive bitch side of me just vanished. (Maybe that's why after our first rendezvous, he texted me saying: "You are actually much more sedate in person than I expected.") It's rather strange that I didn't feel that usual urge to outsmart him or try to look like I know more things than he does. In front of him, I was just me with my limited human brains. And yet, still I could live another day with it.

He: I've been to Japan several times but have never been to Kyoto.
I: What's so special there?
He: Kyoto is what Jogja to Indonesia - the city of culture.

With J, I might have just mumbled "hmmm' or 'uh-uh' right after he said the first sentence. I didn't wanna look like a stupid girl from a third world country who didn't know anything about Kyoto. So I would just shut my mouth up to create the impression that I know things about it. I could just browse and find out about the city at the soonest chance I faced a computer with a broadband. With him, I had to be a talking Encyclopedia or I would end up hating myself.

Basically J and I are two of a kind. We both tend to look down on people having lower level of knowledge and tastes than ours. That's perhaps some sort of karma for me. All this time I might do to others, whose knowledge and tastes aren't in my league, what J did to me. I'm a horrible person, indeed!

I still can recall how I felt like wanting to disappear beneath the ground I was on when he ruined a nice evening by saying: 'Yeah, besides what you know! You dont know anything about your own country's cultures!' (A bartender has just told us about an ancient tradition in a village of Karangasem where old people contributing to the society by painting cloths with their own blood. I had never heard such a unique, heroic act before, of course!)

Una Furtima Lagrima

Upon listening to Una Furtima Lagrima from L'elisir d'amore, an opera by Donizetti, a certain episode from the storyboard of my life suddenly flashed before my eyes. It took place by the beach, somewhere in the center of Indonesian Archipelago not so long ago, while we were sitting at some kind of sunset bar watching the land having been washed out by soft rain get darker and darker ...

He: I grew up with my father listening to Verdi every weekend. He would sing along out loud with a glass of wine in his hand.

I: Really? I like Verdi. But not as much as I love Puccini. His works are my hopeless romantic side. (humming a famous tune from Verdi's La Traviata)

He: (humming along) I can't believe you know Verdi!

I: Everyone knows Verdi.

He: If I took you to my father, I bet he would force me into marrying you.

I'd like to meet that old man who has traveled almost all the globe and owns a small sailing boat, just to look at him in the eye if he's ever taught his eldest son to say things he never means. I'd also want to have a word with him: "Sir, even though I like Verdi, I don't think I ever want to marry your son who has never even taken the initiatives to hold my hand or enjoyed sitting close to me gazing at the stardusts above our heads! And yes, he's passed a rare chance to be with a cultured woman who's not only good in bed, but I'd probably be the one and only woman in his life who ever sincerely adores those brown eyes he inherited them from you!"

Addiction Devotee

I just realized that I've grown addiction to mango juice sold at a small bistro (it's really small, family owned, and unpretentious restaurant, indeed!) located just a few steps away from my dwelling hut. I'm talking about fresh mango juice here. Not too sweet, not too sour, sans lait or whipped cream ... just perfect! It kind of surprised me they got mangoes at this time of the year, while whenever I went to other places promising "Fresh Juices" on the menu cards, when I asked for a mango juice, all they could deliver to serve was the canned one. Like any other promises, the fresh-mango-juice promise is also made to be broken!

But that was before fate let me enter that small bistro in one late evening. From that time on, my life is incomplete without a portion of fresh mango juice. Men can ditch me, work can suck up my youth, friends can stab me in the back, but as long as my throat gets its daily intake of mango juice, then I know I will still have the world in my hand.

Speaking of addiction, here are some of my other addictions I've built through my adult life:

1. Spontaneous things. Be it friends out of the blue picking me up for a cup of Starbuck's signature mocha latte at 3 AM, experimenting the magic of faint lights from garden lamps with a digital camera, introducing myself as a bride-to-be so I could be given the chance to try on a wedding gown, or a part-time lover suddenly inviting me to fly for a tapas at a secluded tapas bar near Orchard, I guess I dig the euphoric state of doing unplanned things.

2. Cheezums Pringles. I can chew the whole big can within minutes all by myself. (I know, I know, gluttony is one of the 7 deadly sins! So what?) And if there's ever God, then yes, I feel like seeing Him right in front of my delusional eyes. After all, my eyes have let out quite amount of salt these days, that it's only fair if I balance it by taking a lot of salt as well.

3. The cute smell of my dogs' feet. Those of dog lovers must know exactly what I mean. If you're not, or even chickened out every time sees a dog, then just forget this and move on to the next point.

4. Half-cooked of any kinds of pancakes: kue cubit, poffertjes, waffles, etc. My tongue never seems to get enough of feeling that soft texture of hot pancakes giving sweet surrender to a mouth job.

5. The falling rain. Seeing how the drops admit defeat to the law of gravity, then trying to bounce up again to no avail, tells me that falling is the essence of life. Falling snow, falling tears, waterfalls, or even falling hearts (ah yes, I can't agree more that the best love songs are written with a broken heart!) are all beautiful, aren't they?

6. Leaving early from work and race to P's arms. Till now, whenever I have the chance to escape early from work, I still wish I could head to his place. Hanging around his apartment was one of the glorious moments in my life. Not only for expressing steamy lust, but I won't even mind listening to him explaining the case of Enron vs Arthur Andersen again and again and again.

7. First time having sex again after a long pause. I should agree with Charlotte of Sex and The City when she says: "When you stop having sex for a long time, you can be revirginized." It's true, it's true! Only this one is minus that sharp pain and ... of course, blood. And when that unison first begins, mon Dieu!, I witness that heaven really exists! (No wonder everybody tries their asses off - they're even willing to kill - to get in there!)

8. J's breathtaking brown eyes. Since I saw him off at the Departure Terminal 2, I started to quench my thirst for staring at his beautiful brown eyes by looking at my dog's big, brown eyes. At least my dog loves me and I don't have to think of the price I have to pay for constantly taking mental pictures of those heavenly eyes.

9. Take-off moments. No matter how many times I've flown, I would always have to close my eyes, as if having London Phillarmonic Orchestra playing Pachelbel's Canon in D right in front of me, to savor the emotional delight. I thought I would only do such unclassy thing on my first abroad trip which I paid for myself on my first salary. But it turns out everytime my plane takes off somewhere, I still feel the need to respect that orgasmic sensation by gripping the sides of my seat tightly and close my eyes. Sometimes even till the 'fasten seat belt' signals being turned off!

10. The baritone voice-over narrating movie trailers. Even bad movies would seem a lot better if that voice speaks. I'd like to know the owner, please!

The Wonder of Reverse Psychology

I never thought that day would come when I would have to delete J from my life along with all of our pictures taken in the places where now are just - as The Beatles calls it: "There are places I remember all my life though some have changed..."

That day came yesterday when I finally decided to put reverse psychology into practice. It's been almost 5 months and I still hadn't had enough courage to delete our last holiday pictures which started filling up my notebook's memory. Simply cause to delete them, I need to look at them. And if I looked at them, I would miss him. And if I missed him, I would be capable of doing stupid things, like out of the blue texting him again after telling him "adieu". And if I did stupid things, of course, I would only end up damaging myself again.

And yes, among very few things left for me to believe, I do still believe in the wonder of reverse psychology: doing the exact opposite of what I've been really avoiding and through the magic of human nature, I ended up getting the effect I've been desperately waiting for: feeling numb.

Neither did I ever think that day would come when I would look at our pictures together and I felt nothing. Not sadness. Not loss. Not missing those beautiful brown eyes looking straight at mine. It's like whatever we had is so far away from where I am now. And it is.

Grammatical Error

"Car Check for Your Secure"
That's what written on a piece of board put in front of a main gate of a hotel establishment I happened to pass through today.

Many non-English conscious or those with broken English but still insist on using the language, might not be able to differ nouns from verbs, though sometimes those two word classes have the exact same forms.

Taking a good look at myself, I too can't differ forms at times. Like the other day when I spent one of the 2-quick-hours' times in my life looking at a beautiful smile of a rather fine male specimen and swimming in his calming pair of dark eyes while talking over a cup of awful coffee, I couldn't differ if it's my hope and it sprang beyond my grip, or it's just a prelude to another crack in my heart.

Soon after, as if whoever writing that announcement on the board I saw today finally had the modesty to consult an English dictionary and admit the grammatical error, I too found my error and admitted to myself that it was just my heart on the floor once again.