The United Altered States of Maryam

He had my identification papers, he had my thumb print and still, the man behind counter number 17 at the Pusat Bandar Damansara immigration office would not hand over my newly renewed passport. What did he want? A DNA cheek swab? Nevermind that I had spent the whole day waiting in line to get that damn thing renewed and another half a day trying to collect it; this man was either really intent on wasting my time much like your average bureaucrat or he was really thorough at his job, very unlike your average bureaucrat. He had the lazy leer of someone who took hour long coffee breaks from work to chat up girls at the bus stop. He leers at me, despite the fact that I was of legal age, but scrutinizes my passport photo with a deep, disapproving frown.

I asked him what the matter was. He shakes his head oh-so-slowly as if he wasn’t used to ever moving quite so much in his life. His mouth took half an hour to form a slight grin that one would think he would be 60 before he managed a proper smile and dead before he could say his own name. Around me, children shrieked and screamed and ran and bumped into me while their parents looked on with oh-aren’t-my-kids-cute expressions. For some reason, or because the Cosmic Order hates me for hating little children, there were tons of miniature humans at the immigration office that day that one would be forgiven for thinking it was a pediatrician’s clinic.

“Saya rasa, you patut buat passport baru…” Mr. Immigration said. He looked like he was having such a hard time getting the words out of his mouth that I almost wanted to give him a glass of water and say ‘there-there’ if I wasn’t already feeling like stabbing him with his own name tag.

Make a new passport?!!! I did make a new passport, you shit and you’re holding it in your hands! But of course, I did a little smile through gritted teeth and politely asked him why. Then I took a little nap and had a couple of grandchildren while waiting for him to reply.

Finally, he said, “Sebab gambar ni tak lawa la… Muka you macam tembam kat sini…” Fancy that, the immigration guy telling you to make a new passport because your face looked puffy in the photo. It’s a passport for god’s sake, not a Vogue cover shoot. What? I’m going to be denied access to a country because I’m not photogenic??

Well, maybe not a country but it might complicate the matter of getting into a club. A few months after the encounter with immigration clerk/ beauty pageant judge, I’m out on town in the Gold Coast, dolled up to my skanky best. It was my housemate’s, S.S.’ last night as my housemate (she was set to leave back home for the States the following morning) and my good friend K was also permanently moving back home to Malaysia the following day and we were determined to make our parting one big party. We arrived at the doorstep of Melba’s in Surfers. The bouncer was all smiles when he greeted us, cordially requesting for I.D. The smile disappeared as soon as he received my passport, replaced by a puzzled expression. He stared at the photo, then at my face, back at the photo, then at my face before saying, “Sweetie, this isn’t you.”

“It’s me.”

“No… this is your mom or something.”

“What?! It’s me!” My mom can’t be 20 years old to have a daughter old enough to have boobs you dumb fuck.

“Do you have any other ID on you, love?”

“No, that’s it. And it’s me.”

“Really?!” He takes another look at the photo. “No…..”

“Well, I have my Malaysian Driver’s License if you want to take a look at that.”

“We don’t usually accept foreign driver’s license as a form of ID but show it to me, I’ll see what I can do.”

I dig in my wallet and hand it over to him.

Mr. Bouncer takes another look at my face before carefully studying my driver’s license. S.S., K & I anxiously await Mr. Bouncer’s verdict…..

And we the jury find the defendant………

Mr. Bouncer bursts out in laughter. “Jesus, this is a bad photo too!”

…not photogenic.


Previous Entry: Tranquilizers, Talk & Torture

Posted by Maryam at 10:21 PM | Permalink |

One: K-Fed

A suburb of Kuala Lumpur, once upon a time in a by-gone era……

With her newly-issued driver’s license, the one where her face looks like a potato and hair dyed like a pirated DVD seller to celebrate her liberation from the style-fascism of Malaysian government schools, she combs the small mound of white powder before her into three lines that were probably too thick for her own good. She licks her driver’s license clean. With a tiny straw, she snorts the lines up her nose in swift, sweeping motions before tilting her head back to make sure that every bit of powder goes into her system. She feels the kind of sting one usually feels when something goes through one’s nose the wrong way. Her eyes water a little. She feels the substance drip down her throat. It tasted bitter and she figured it was irony at work. This is sweet, if you know what I mean.

She waits for the Ketamine to take effect. She waits for that rush of nothingness; for that dull buzz to take over her perception of reality, to dampen, mute and drown every irritating, loud, glaring sensation that is an inevitable byproduct of being alive, no, that is a condition for being alive. But she’ll show them. She’ll show them all she can beat the system. It doesn’t happen, not yet.

Repeat twice. Then two more lines. Just a little bit more. Now she’s done.

“Fuck woman, you’re like a pro!” her friend exclaims.

No, not pro but a natural. Absolute fucking natural. This is what she really is. Useless? Why so? Because she has nothing on paper that would qualify as an achievement? Maybe. She has done nothing, nothing at all, yet another fortunate youth unfortunately wasted to fruitless ambition. But she is a consumer. Consumption is everything; all else is its waste emission. This is what she is. She is high, fucking high, high above the dull grind of actual creation. Her head must have crashed to the floor. Not that she would have felt it then. Oh, she felt like a Care Bear laying itself down on a fluffy cloud, rainbow on its chest. Care Bears……… SHARE!

She hands the straw over to her friend, along with the Ketamine. “Knock yourself out,” she said. And meant it literally. Snort, snort, and her friend’s head join hers on the floor.

To quote Alice in Wonderland as she stumbled down the rabbit hole, “FUUUCK,” they both said.

Time passed, how much, she can’t say. Was she breaking the unnaturally strict curfew her parents had set for her? Who cares? She didn’t. Not at that moment, not a care in the world. She’s numb as you can expect a human being on horse tranqulizers would be. The numbness is isolating, she feels alone but is not lonely. It’s a selfish feeling. Her face curls up into a smile and it stays that way for a while. She doesn’t know what she’s smiling about. In fact, she doesn’t even know that she’s smiling. She can’t feel her face and is therefore unable to form a more suitable expression. How can you control something you can’t feel? And how can you be blamed for something you can’t control? In any case what would be a suitable expression for such an occasion? It’s all good, all good. Aaah, tranquilo. Layan siiot. Laaa---yaaan.

She hears a distant cry or what sounded like a distant cry. The voice seemed familiar, as if she was just having a conversation with it a moment ago. Indeed, the voice sounded a lot like her friend’s. Her friend. Where is her friend? Where did her friend go? She turns her head or more accurately, her head flops to the other side. Nope, no friend. There was that cry again. Some banging. More like a beat, deep pulsing beat of some ancient ceremonial dance. It came from the bathroom door behind her. Her friend seemed to have accidentally locked herself in while taking a piss. Our girl, if she was sober, she would be laughing. And then she would be helping. But no, she’s high, fucking high, high above the hilarities of minor, day-to-day mishaps, high on a “dissociative anaesthetic” – what else could she do but dissociate? Her friend’s trapped in the bathroom but well, hey, it’s hard to give a fuck. Whose friend was it again? Hers? Who is ‘her’?

Then, like a knight in faded t-shirt, her friend’s boyfriend come running out of nowhere with a flying kick aimed towards the bathroom door. It swings open. And you thought these things only work out for Jean Claude Van Damme. Cue chorus of angels and beams of light. All the while, our girl remained on the floor, staring at the ceiling. As it turned out, the friend decides that she likes it in the bathtub and wants to stay there for some time. Mr. Boyfriend was sent off to get food. After all, if a good deed is its own reward, then sure his good deed towards them called for another good deed towards them.

The food arrived and Mr. Boyfriend was made to disappear. Our girl still lay in a state of near-paralysis on the floor as her friend, fresh out of the dry bath, stuff bits of fried chicken into her mouth. She could choke. She could very well choke and the beautiful thing was that it didn’t seem like a problem. She says or slurs to her friend, “You could remove my kidney right here, right now and I wouldn’t give a shit.

The friend broke out in laughter. “Who would want your rotten, druggie’s organs, wei?”

“Eh, my kidney probably thinks more than your brains, okay?” she replied. “And I’m not a druggie.” No, perhaps not an addict. But indeed, a druggie. You could tell by the way her kidney did the thinking for her. “Take my kidney, take my fucking kidney! I don’t care, man.”

Then her phone rings. Her previously limp, immobile body shoots straight up at the sight of “Mama” flashing on her caller ID, like she was Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction and had just been stabbed with adrenaline through the heart. She answers the phone in near-perfect speech, “Hello, ma. Oh nothing, I was just in college finishing up some work. What? Ok, Ok, Driving home soon. How soon? When I’m done with work. What? Why are you yelling at me? Fine, fine, I’ll go home now…”

And just like that every irritating, loud, glaring sensation that is a condition for being alive returns to our girl. How poetic (if not completely cheesy) that it should be brought upon by the woman who gave her life.

“You’re going home?” the friend asks “You sure you’re okay enough to drive home and face your mom?”

Our girl nods and quotes what Dorothy from Wizard of Oz really said when she found herself back in Kansas, “Fuck man, I’m sober already."

And just like that, she started to care again.

Crap.

** Epilogue (of sorts): After an overdose on Ecstasy pills which landed “The Friend” in the ICU unit with tubes coming in and out of every other orifice in her body for five days, “The Friend” has apparently sworn off recreational drug use. And though nothing of that sort has ever happened to “She”, she is retired from the world of pills, powders, crystals and inhalants nonetheless. “She” reckoned she simply grew out of it. But one could say that something that starts with the letter ‘G’ and rhymes with ‘Uilt’ helped the process along. “She” remains the proud owner of two kidneys.

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Two: Voice of a Generation

If art imitates life, then the media imitates (and to a certain extent, shapes) youth. It would only make sense then that the first step towards acquainting oneself with a generation’s general mindset is to examine its popular media products – TV show for instance. After all, nothing becomes famous without a decent amount of support and interest from the public. And no one really has interest in supporting something that isn’t in part, a reflection of themselves and their aspirations.

I was watching a re-run of that Gen-X era MTV animated series, Daria and I realized that MTV programs used to be able to contain some semblance of intelligence and substance. Even Beavis & Butthead, which had the titular characters mostly sitting around doing nothing, could still be described as a rather cleverly subversive vehicle for social criticism. Of course, I was born at the tail end of 1985 which means I can’t even begin to pretend to be a Gen X-er. It suits me fine. They were much too stylishly miserable and whiny for my liking anyhow. I can’t help but think the reason why the Gen X-ers complained so endlessly was because they had so much to say and no one to listen to them say it, allowing MTV to capitalize on that and launch itself into the stratosphere as a cultural youth phenomenon.

But now that Gen X-ers have grown up, quit their whining, started taking showers, made money off the internet and become yuppies, it’s time for us Gen Y kids to step up and say whatever we have to say in the wonderful world of mass media. And what is it do we have to say?

I don’t know; let us look at a couple of popular current MTV programs for starters shall we? There’s Laguna Beach. For the uninitiated, it’s s a reality show starring a bunch of rich kids living in the affluent Californian community from which the show takes its title from. Each episode sees the characters spending money, partying, stealing each other’s boyfriends and then talking about the bitch who stole their boyfriend to other man-stealing bitches. There’s Rich Girls which explores the luxurious lifestyle of Tommy Hilfiger’s daughter, Ally and her equally rich best friend whatshername as they talk about boys and err… you know, (excuse me, what do they talk about?) There’s My Super Sweet Sixteen which showcases rich kids demanding lavish parties and a Mercedes Benz for their 16^th birthday. There’s Pimp My Ride in which we see Jacuzzi tubs, diamond encrusted chandeliers and bowling alleys being installed into cars.

What about popular youth-oriented TV shows on other networks? There’s that phenomenon called The O.C. where we again, see a bunch of rich kids (this time, fictional) spending money, partying, stealing each other’s boyfriends and then talking about the bitch who stole their boyfriend. There’s the Simple Life in which we celebrate the stupidity of the very rich Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie as they get even richer by exploiting our own stupid fascination with stupidity.

Could it be that this generation, really has nothing to say but much to buy?

The Gen X-ers, they had Cobain among others, as their icon of sorts. Who do the Gen-Y kids have? No, really, god-forbid, could it….must it…is it… Paris Hilton & Co.? Well, why not Paris? Yes, she lacks talent but she is undeniably, shit famous at the moment. And this matters why? Like I said earlier, nothing becomes famous without a decent amount of support and interest from the public. And no one really has interest in supporting something that isn’t in part, a reflection of themselves and their aspirations.

You might disagree (or be in complete denial) with the opinion that Paris Hilton could possibly be the voice of a generation but say that no one else comes along before we reach 30, say that she is - What does the voice of generation-Y have to say to the rest of the world? “Stars are blind”? “Lindsay Lohan is a firecrotch”? That’s Hot?

My intent is not to attack Paris and the likes. I’m sure they’ve worked hard for their successes. I’m not saying I’m better than them either. I’m probably just like them (plus a few extra kilos in weight, minus the fame and fortune, of course.) All I’m saying is that if this is all Generation Y has to say then perhaps, we do indeed deserve to be put on mute and made to watch re-runs of Gen-X shows.

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Three: Red Hot Chili Torture

The New York Times recently revealed that Abu Zubaydah, the first Al-Qaeda member captured after the September 11 attacks, was kept in a freezing cell until he went blue and later assailed with Red Hot Chili Peppers music at full volume as part of the CIA’s interrogation methods. I suggest that if the CIA were really serious about cracking these terrorists, they should get their hands on a Hillary Duff record. There’s nothing like being made to listen to a talent-challenged bubblegummer listlessly squeak her way through professionally produced nursery songs. The thought of her laughing all the way to the bank would make anyone crack. But of course, that might really prove to be some serious human rights violation now wouldn’t it? Personally, I feel that the only thing anyone is going to get out of me by playing RHCP is a, “Hey man, I love this song!” and a sing-a-long.

Not that I think the state of pop music today is a more serious issue than torture and a lack of regard for the Geneva Convention. I can’t find the link for the NYT article but you can read about the matter in the Guardian and Slate Magazine and seriously ponder away……

Previous Entry: Life Lessons

Posted by Maryam at 4:59 AM | Permalink |

My mother calls me up to say, “Hasn’t it dawned on you that you are no longer a teenager?”

I say I must have missed this dawn. I woke up around noon.

“You’re 24, Maryam.”

Uhm.. actually ma, 24 is your other daughter’s age. I’m 3 months short of 21.

“Regardless, there are certain things that you should’ve learned by now.”

And I certainly have. What you are about to read is an incomplete collection of some of the things my life has taught me so far. Because I don’t have and don’t plan to have children, nor do I have younger siblings to pass on sage advice to and share life lessons with, I’m just going to put this out there. It isn’t much because we all know that I’m no Grand Maharishi of Wisdom of any kind. I’m still winging through most of the things that count. But it’s a start, I say.

1. Action: Forging your parent’s signature on your school report card & other forms

I started forging my mom’s signature when I was 9 years old, in standard four. It was not so much done with the intention of deceit as it was out of convenience, at least it started out that way. Which kid could be arsed to remember to hand little things like report cards and permission slips over to their parents by a certain due date? I thought forgery was easier than coming up with an explanation. At 16, my mother realized that she hadn’t seen my report card in a long while and demanded that I show it to her, the very report card that contained four years of forged signatures. That was also the year where I failed 9 out of 10 subjects in school, which my parents, if they knew, would have been none too pleased about. So I spilled a jar of thick, black ink all over my report card and said it was an accident. So I had gone from committing fraud to destroying evidence to cover up the fact that I had committed fraud and then I provided false testimony to hide the fact that I destroyed evidence.

Possible consequences:

#1 – You grow up to lead a life of crime and end up in jail.
#2 – You grow up to lead a life of crime and end up a politician.
#3 – You grow up to lead a life of crime and become a politician that ends up in jail.
#3A – You end up a Communications student.

Lessons Learned
The good people were right. There is no big lie to end all lies. Deceit begets deceit and it feeds and grows within its own falsehood. Deceit is a perfect, self-contained creature.

2. Action: Dumping your housemate’s wine in the freezer to make space for your shit in the fridge. Particularly if it is cheap wine that comes in foil packaging. It freezes. And your housemate’s special dinner guests are arriving in 2 minutes. And we’re not really sure if you can defrost wine in a microwave. No one we know ever had cause to place a bag of wine in the microwave.

Possible Consequences:

#1 – Winesicles become the culinary experience du jour. Like fondue was in the seventies.
#2 – The microwave explodes. None of you survive to promote your Winesicles and the explosion sets off a massive terrorist alert. Especially when the authorities find out that one of the people involved was one of ‘em, you know, “Mozz-lums”
#3 – Your housemate laughs it off, serves her guests water instead and prays that Jesus will drop by and turn it into wine.

Lessons Learned:

Only potato chips should come in foil packaging. Unless you live with two anorexics and an imaginary friend, get a bigger fridge. Miracles don’t usually happen – that’s precisely what makes them miraculous.

3. Action: Snorting a mixture of pepper, chili paste, carbonated soda and grated ginger up your nose because you were bored, one day after class and your friends reckoned that you wouldn’t have the balls to do so.

Possible Consequences:

#1 – Your friends start to suspect that you’re not human because you barely shed a tear and did not have a painful reaction as expected. You would then have to go through the trouble of killing them now that they know your secret.
#2 – You develop a habit that could out-snort Pete Doherty and end up with a uni-nostril.
#3 – You permanently lose all sense of smell and forget the need for deodorant. You then spend the rest of your life wondering why no one wants to be around you.
#3a – You become an MTV reality star.

Lessons Learned:

It’s alright not to have balls, especially if you’re female.

4. Action: Recreational Drug Use: Possible Consequences & Lessons Learned

(Coming Soon) I wrote a paragraph and then decided that this issue calls for its own blog entry and lots of deep, careful reflection.

5. Action: Moving. Relocating.

There is no use trying to pack your entire life into a suitcase. A person is in a state of continual change; they grow and they move. But a life cannot be moved. A life cannot exist outside its given moment. A life cannot be returned to because a life left behind, is a life that no longer exists. The moment has passed. A person’s existence is made out of a series of moments, held together by that fragile thread we call Memory. In between, birth and death, a person may lead many lives. The cycle of reincarnation can happen in a single lifetime. Yet there is no repetition. Only imitation. When you say you miss home, is it the geographical location of your former residence that you refer to? No, of course not. Home is not a place but a time long ticked away, like the dead beyond resurrection. Hence there is no need to pack your entire life into a suitcase. Everything you truly need is already attached to you. And the rest can be wired to your bank account.

Posted by Maryam at 11:01 PM | Permalink |

One: Hello, Clarice

Friday night only comes to a close at 3 o’clock on a Saturday morning. It was around this time that our girl hobbled out of the club onto the curb to wait for a cab home. She thought wearing flats instead of heels would enable her to practically skip all the way back home after five hours of dancing to bad music and running away from a German boy in a black fedora whose idea of kissing wasn’t all that different from eating a cheeseburger – all sinking teeth and chewing. In theory, wearing flats was certainly a wise option. Only her ballet flats, as cute as they looked with its little white polka dots ala something out of Sienna Miller’s wardrobe, pinched and chafed her big bulbous toes, her wide feet with the permanent flip-flop tan-line and one missing toenail that was a result of an unfortunate accident with a slamming door. She considered taking off her shoes but upon glancing at the puke-covered pavement, made sparkly with bits of broken beer bottles, she decided that some amount of pain was worth not stepping into someone’s regurgitated vodka and kebab.

Our girl’s two housemates, lets call them Anna and Sylvie were with her but each with grievances all their own. Anna had taken off her shoe earlier, a rather threatening specimen of four-inch heels, to throw in the direction of her boyfriend who had left in favor of an early night in alone at his own place so he would be able to be up early to surf. “Fuck you, FUCK YOU maaaan and your fucking waves!!!!!!” she yelled at the spot where her boyfriend said his goodbye for the night and now only a lamppost stood, erect and unspectacular.

“Oi, look, that chick’s talking to a pole!” said a passing drunk person who must have thought he made for an exemplary citizen himself.

Sylvie was trapped in a conversation with a bunch of guys from New Zealand. Their ears seem to perk like a dog’s to a whistle when she mentioned she was from France. They proceeded to request for a French kiss. Sylvie rolled her eyes and ended the conversation abruptly turning back to our girl to complain. “What’s this thing about French girls?! I don’t understand. I might be French, but I’m a normal person too!!!”

Good to know that the French sometimes consider themselves as average as the rest of the world but truth be told, our girl wasn’t even listening. The less than stellar sound system at the club had messed with her hearing a bit. It didn’t help that she spent a considerable amount of time hiding behind the speakers to escape aforementioned German BiteMeister who was cute but alas, must have mistaken our girl for a piece of chewing gum meets childhood pacifier.

“Hey, what happened to the cutie you were with earlier?” Anna asked, visibly calmer after venting her frustrations at an innocent lamppost which now bore the scars of her femme fatale shoes.

“Whaaaat?”

“I said, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CUTIE YOU WERE WITH EARLIER?!!”

“Whaaat?”

“WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CUTIE YOU WERE WITH EARLIER???!!!”

“Yeah, she wants to know what happened to the cutie earlier! I’m here!” a passing drunk person piped in, uninvited, before swaying on his merry drunken way down the avenue after Anna threatened to fling her one remaining shoe at him.

“Oh, him. Meh,” our girl said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Why? He was really into you.”

“He was into cannibalism.”

Two: Surfer’s Paradise: Not the real O.C.

3. 30 am and till standing at a taxi stand on a street in Surfer’s Paradise, our girl was starting to wonder what the point to these empty nights of partying was exactly when at that moment, she could have been snugly and comfortably buried underneath a blanket, soundly asleep in bed after devouring a box of Tim Tams while watching Big Brother Up Late in the comfort of her pajamas and blister-free bare feet. Right, that was the point. Still, what did she have to show for a night out? An empty wallet, blisters and the feeling as if she had been chewed out and spat out by a bear. A bear in the form of a German in a fedora hat.

She wondered if the strip of hotels, clubs, and assorted tacky tourist traps known as Surfer’s Paradise should be forced to have its name changed. After all, everyone knew the real surfers caught waves down in Burleigh Heads. And it was no paradise, unless you have low standards for the final abode of the righteous. Two girls passed by looking like a cross between someone from the MTV reality show, Laguna Beach: The Real O.C. and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman before she got the fairytale Hollywood/ Richard Gere-financed makeover. Surfer’s Paradise: Not the Real O.C., our girl thought. At this rate, it wasn’t even the fake one.

“Where are all the taxis?!” Sylvie asked no one in particular, just as Our Girl jumped to the middle of the road at the sight of what she thought was an oncoming cab. Only it turned out to be a police car. That was the problem with police cars in Australia. They look like cabs. “Sorry, thought you were a cab!”

The police officers snorted, then laughed then looked entirely pissed off before driving off. Yes. If there was anything worse than a uni student on a Friday night/ Saturday morning it was an international uni student on a Friday night/ Saturday morning; heck, it’s a plague worse than tourists.

Three: Rock the Unibrow

3:45 a.m. and our girl along with her housemates Anna and Sylvie had finally secured themselves a cab which our girl initially mistook for a police car. The driver was unusually chatty for someone who had to work at 3 o’clock in the morning. “So, you girls are students at the uni, eh? What are you studying?”

“Psychology,” answered Anna.

“I’m doing my MBA,” answered Sylvie.

Our girl didn’t answer, not out of intentional rudeness but she was engrossed in her own thoughts. By now, she was so tired that her thoughts went beyond that of just going home and going to bed. Her thoughts were of going somewhere, in a bigger picture, life sense and then her thoughts just went everywhere. She ended up thinking of a black and white photo of Francoise Hardy she saw in a magazine once, perched on top of a motorcycle, looking tough yet elegant all at once. Of Frida Kahlo – charismatic, hypnotically alluring and sensual, passionately working away in her studio, rocking the unibrow like it were a crown of jewels. Our girl thought of all those women who were iconic yet could not be imitated, of women that seem to live and live or will live beyond their lifetimes, some of which even made mental instability and being tragic, strangely desirable. Our girl sometimes considered herself tragic (though in truth, she wasn’t so much tragic as she was unfortunate, where her unfortunate personality resulted in ungrateful behavior, dissatisfaction, self-pity and the occasional stubbed toe) but she reckoned she wasn’t tragic enough to be iconic, just enough to be laughed at. And then she wondered if she was really even funny-tragic or simply melodramatic because melodrama is only funny because it’s rather pathetic. And then she started to worry at the possibility that she might be pathetic. And that made her, undeniably, pathetic.

“…..So, what do you girls plan to be after graduating?” the cab driver’s voice began to slowly filter back into Our Girl’s head.

“I already have a job lined up as a counselor at a rehab centre,” Anna answered. A joint was sticking out of her side jeans pocket.

“Go into business, become rich!” Sylvie answered.

“And what about you?” the cab driver said to our girl.

“Who? Me? Oh….uh…,” Our Girl never quite had an answer ready for these things. She thought of the matter plenty of times before but she never could decide on anything in particular. She said ‘teacher’ to please her teachers. She said ‘lawyer’ to please her parents. She said ‘rock star’ to piss them off. She said ‘journalist’ to justify her current field of study. She said ‘writer’ cause she had a blog. She said ‘tai tai, lady of leisure’ for amusement’s sake. And she said ‘don’t know’ to end the discussion.

And then it hit her, like a high heeled shoe to Anna’s boyfriend’s back; she quite simply, wanted to be… “Fabulous. I want to be fabulous.”

The cab driver broke out in laughter.

Epilogue

Anna is currently in the States, back in her hometown of Pittsburgh. Her boyfriend is also back in his hometown of Sao Paolo, Brazil. They communicate daily online and are happily engaged. They plan to settle down together in San Diego, California in a few months time where he can surf in the morning and return home to her by night.

Sylvie is still in the Gold Coast and has embraced the fact that being French makes her special. She still hasn’t accepted anyone’s request for a French kiss. She studies and works hard and is definitely on her way to becoming rich.

After developing an irrational fear of most men with teeth, Our Girl now spends every night at home watching bad television. She’s still working on being fabulous although only time will tell if she’s on the right path. Right now, she just wants someone to tell her where the remote is.

She is sitting on it.

Previous Entry: What the Fuck is Postmodernism?

Posted by Maryam at 3:21 AM | Permalink |

I can’t figure out whether the concept/babble of Postmodernism is so simple that it’s baffling or whether it really is terribly baffling and I’m just simple. Or, could it be that postmodernism is simply a sort of stylishly intellectualized new form of astrology whereby its concerns and explanations are so general and vague that something is bound to stick if you throw enough things at a wall. Or, could it be that in its rejection of Grand Narratives, postmodernism is the anti-ideology ideology making it both as useful and as tantalizing as crotch-less panties. It won’t stop bodily emissions of the southern kind from staining your pants but it’s not meant to be worn with pants anyhow. In conclusion, my Epiphany of the Day is this: Postmodernism is not to be worn with pants.

Or, you can read what David Weinberger had to say in the article “Knowledge & Fallibility (Or Postmodernism is Right)”:

“……our culture, under the grip of philosophers, came to believe that knowledge is a corrective for fallibility. Having recognized that our unreflective grasp of the world is unreliable, we've treated knowledge as a way to gain the certainty that we had previously assumed we possessed. Thus, the story of knowledge begins with mathematics, and it ends — an ending in which we still live — with Descartes' reduction of the realm of knowledge to a single, self-reflective proposition. When we think of knowledge as a corrective for fallibility, we are comfortable with a knowledge aristocracy in which there are authorities different from you and I. They are the great encyclopedias, the great newspapers, the great journals. We are mere footloose commoners who look things up in the works the aristocrats have announced. But there is no corrective for fallibility. We live in the breach between the world and how we take it. We are that breach. It closes only when they shovel the dirt over us. Until then, there are only degrees and modes of fallibility. That doesn't mean the authorities have no authority. It does mean that there is nothing with total authority. We're stuck with always having the argument about what to believe because knowledge is a way to manage fallibility, not to escape it.”

Posted by Maryam at 3:18 AM | Permalink |

A year ago, JD Fortune was 10, 000 miles away from where I was.

A year later, he was 10 feet away from where I stood.

A year ago, I watched JD celebrate his birthday on TV on a show called Rock Star: INXS.

A year later, I got to sing him “Happy Birthday” in person.

A year ago, I held my breath, hoping that INXS would announce JD as their new lead singer.

A year later, I started hyperventilating at the sight of JD performing live onstage, right before my eyes as….the lead singer of INXS.

A year ago, I started this blog and wrote of my love for JD & INXS

A year later, I got to say it to them.

Poetic, don’t you think? (The situation, not my choice of words).

It doesn’t matter that there were 5000 other people around me doing exactly the same thing. All that matters is that INXS, you were there, I was standing, two worlds colliding and they could NEVER TEAR US APART! INXS, live at Riverstage, Brisbane on Friday, 1^stof September. I was there. Before the show, it had been raining for three days running. The rain cleared as soon as they stepped on stage. When the show came to an end, it started raining again. I walked back home (ok, to the train station), barefoot through sludgy mud – I had to take my bloody shoes off because they pinched and gave me blisters that made my feet look like a model for the solar system. Dirty, tired, cold, wet, half-crippled, and probably at risk for contracting some terrible disease from walking barefoot through the city streets, I couldn’t bring myself to add ‘miserable’ to the list because for the first time in a while, I wasn’t. I was the happiest I had been in months and all it took was song. And a band that seems to appreciate the effort their fans make to watch them play by putting up a fucking good show. (I swear INXS is amazing live. Their studio albums don’t do them justice.)

Someday, I too hope to be loved for doing what I love. I too hope to someday alleviate the miseries of a dirty, tired, cold, wet, half-crippled stranger, at risk for contracting some terrible disease from walking barefoot through the city streets. I would probably start by telling them to wear sensible shoes and carry an umbrella. Of course, I myself have this illogical belief that carrying an umbrella makes me look dumber than walking around town like I’ve just won a wet t-shirt contest that no one else has taken part in. But I’m a bimbo. My sunglasses are bigger than my brain. But just so you know, my sunglasses are huge.

Happy Birthday to my gula-gula kapas, hantu rock-yeh-yeh kesayanganku, JD Fortune. Yes, I know, you don’t belong to me, and I just got to let you go ……… And I will. Just not anytime soon.

Happy Birthday to my rubbish blog.

Happy Belated Birthday to tanah tumpah darahku, Malaysia

Happy Be-early Birthday to my mom. And Ma, I’m sorry, but now that I’ve seen JD in the flesh, I’m even more set on making him your son-in-law. He told me he loved me. Really, he did. What 5000 other people?

A year ago, I was delusional. A year later, I’m err…..just…err… move along.

See that this is more than just a full circle. It’s a perfect one.

Posted by Maryam at 7:23 PM | Permalink |