Bah. Too much eyes I put on my ideal life the last time I broke my leg.
Just when I had sprung back to my feet and had gotten back to a healthy routine of work and workouts, I had another accident, went screeching in an auto to the hospital, wheel-chaired my way into the X-Ray room, discovered a lateral condyle tibia fracture, went into surgery, got two screws fixed below my knee, got a big fat iron brace to hold my leg straight and got sentenced to two months of bed rest. I know I have big-big eyes. But to cast evil sight on myself? Didn’t think I could do it.
Coming to think of it, I wonder how long I have been wallowing in self-contentment. The whole of this year, I have been mighty pleased about starting a moderately successful business venture, spending time the way I want, having enough money to do so, seeing a little of the outside world, building and strengthening friendships, losing weight and a lot of it at that. And every time I think life couldn’t get any better, I’ve been handed a double dose of misfortune – I broke my leg twice, my husband went through surgery twice, two other members of the family did time at the hospital, my company almost closed shop and I almost lost a good friend – the year 2008 couldn’t have been any better. Or any worse.
It’s sad to think that you can’t even feel good about what you have worked so hard to achieve. Sure, modesty is the way to live and all that. But it’s not like I thought I achieved Nirvana. Or that I thought other people still had many rebirths to live before getting to where I was. On second thoughts, maybe I did. Sigh.
Anyway, it’s a lesson learned the hard way. So, no puffing belly and thumping chest this time. And no feeling oh-so-proud about my laziness and finding excuses to encourage it. The fact that the injury has been extremely painful is also keeping my emotions in check. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean I want people to know I am hurting.
For I’ve begun to realise that underplaying life is the best way to live it. Don’t feel too happy. Don’t feel too sad. Nothing is permanent. And modesty IS really the way to live.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Big foot blues.
I am the laziest person I know. And thanks to life’s little joys, I got a chance to practise lethargy by getting a doctor-endorsed excuse for it. I gave me a broken bone, a baby blue cast and a brilliant way to spend 5 weeks in blissful indolence.
It happened one rainy night when I tried to walk too fast. I lost footing, my ankle twisted, the ligaments tore away a part of the bone and I got a fracture. It doesn’t say much about someone who’s been sacrificing a non-existent social life to 270 evenings in a gym, running away from horrific mirror images, photographic proof and crystal ball visions of corpulence popping out of my ears. Coming to think of it, the 270ish days of strength training could in fact redeem itself by explaining the fact that I endured 7 hours of bus travel, to realise the next morning that I walked home with a fracture after my long weekend holiday at mom-town. The next thing I knew, I was clicking pictures of myself coming out of the hospital on a wheelchair. ‘Cos I was bringing home the biggest reason that I needed to stay home.
And so, without wasting a moment’s time of wastefulness, I shed my gym skin to bare my true sloth bear self. I had make-shift arrangements made to watch endless episodes of downloaded serials, channel surf on the new cable TV set-top box, web surf, charge laptops and phone, eat and drink and L-A-Z-E with a capital hurrah, all without moving an inch!
And whaddya know, I am finally living the life I’ve always dreamed of. My friends come home every day to entertain me. Every visitor wants to do his good deed for the day by helping the poor and needy. (Me being the one coming closest to the aforementioned adjectives.) I get excused from all the tedious relatives’ house-hopping to exchange leaves, nuts and cut-pieces of cheap cloth during festival time because I cannot walk. (I haven’t told them that I can hop). I get to holler for what I want, when I want it. Even if it means making people walk up and down and back and forth to bring stuff, when one trip could’ve fetched everything. (My excuse – I see other people doing what I cannot do and I am gratified by living my life through theirs.) Is that too much for a sick patient to ask? Sympathy votes in favour of a resounding NO.
Before I cast my own evil eyes on my hard-earned nirvana, I should warn myself that it’s all going to come crashing down just like I heard my bone go crack, pop and weasel. That the day I start walking again, all my friends will walk out on me. My well-wishers will shift loyalties to endorsing more pressing social issues. Like preventing domestic wars breaking out over why a certain daughter-in-law didn’t go house-visiting. I will run out of reasons to ask people to do things for me. And I will have to start running doubly fast on the treadmill to undo what 37 days would do to 9 months of sweat and BO.
So when it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee (that I would have to make for myself), I am going to need a better excuse to wear those gym shoes that I am not going to get my lazy ass into. In the meanwhile, I am resorting to cheap tricks like getting a nail-round in my thumb (loose translation for "naga-chuthu" a.k.a. bad-ass pus-forming boil) and getting my tooth pulled out to give my vegetative brain more time to think of sympathy-votes-winning, work-avoiding, timepass-encouraging excuses.
It happened one rainy night when I tried to walk too fast. I lost footing, my ankle twisted, the ligaments tore away a part of the bone and I got a fracture. It doesn’t say much about someone who’s been sacrificing a non-existent social life to 270 evenings in a gym, running away from horrific mirror images, photographic proof and crystal ball visions of corpulence popping out of my ears. Coming to think of it, the 270ish days of strength training could in fact redeem itself by explaining the fact that I endured 7 hours of bus travel, to realise the next morning that I walked home with a fracture after my long weekend holiday at mom-town. The next thing I knew, I was clicking pictures of myself coming out of the hospital on a wheelchair. ‘Cos I was bringing home the biggest reason that I needed to stay home.
And so, without wasting a moment’s time of wastefulness, I shed my gym skin to bare my true sloth bear self. I had make-shift arrangements made to watch endless episodes of downloaded serials, channel surf on the new cable TV set-top box, web surf, charge laptops and phone, eat and drink and L-A-Z-E with a capital hurrah, all without moving an inch!
And whaddya know, I am finally living the life I’ve always dreamed of. My friends come home every day to entertain me. Every visitor wants to do his good deed for the day by helping the poor and needy. (Me being the one coming closest to the aforementioned adjectives.) I get excused from all the tedious relatives’ house-hopping to exchange leaves, nuts and cut-pieces of cheap cloth during festival time because I cannot walk. (I haven’t told them that I can hop). I get to holler for what I want, when I want it. Even if it means making people walk up and down and back and forth to bring stuff, when one trip could’ve fetched everything. (My excuse – I see other people doing what I cannot do and I am gratified by living my life through theirs.) Is that too much for a sick patient to ask? Sympathy votes in favour of a resounding NO.
Before I cast my own evil eyes on my hard-earned nirvana, I should warn myself that it’s all going to come crashing down just like I heard my bone go crack, pop and weasel. That the day I start walking again, all my friends will walk out on me. My well-wishers will shift loyalties to endorsing more pressing social issues. Like preventing domestic wars breaking out over why a certain daughter-in-law didn’t go house-visiting. I will run out of reasons to ask people to do things for me. And I will have to start running doubly fast on the treadmill to undo what 37 days would do to 9 months of sweat and BO.
So when it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee (that I would have to make for myself), I am going to need a better excuse to wear those gym shoes that I am not going to get my lazy ass into. In the meanwhile, I am resorting to cheap tricks like getting a nail-round in my thumb (loose translation for "naga-chuthu" a.k.a. bad-ass pus-forming boil) and getting my tooth pulled out to give my vegetative brain more time to think of sympathy-votes-winning, work-avoiding, timepass-encouraging excuses.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus.
I am from the dark side of the moon.
Everything about me is irregular. From an asymmetric anatomy to fleeting moments of consciousness, I have the body and mind of a regular schizophrenic. There is no order in my life either. No habits. No clockwork oranges. No daily dosages. No morning potties. No monthly salaries. No 9-5 work days. No summer holidays. No weekend parties. No Monday morning blues. No Saturday night fevers. No Sunday brunches. No vegetarian days. No bad hair days (it’s just generally bad). No girls' night outs. No lady-like behaviour patterns. No motherly instincts. Other than my period, practically everything else in my life comes and goes as and when it pleases.
For the considerably a-for-mango life that I live, I'm not surprised my blog is just as irregular. So what do people like me do to make a habit out of something? More importantly can someone like me even carry on something for long enough to make it a habit in the first place? Not when I like my random lifestyle, I suppose.
Really. Who wants to wake up in the morning knowing exactly what is going to happen every hour, on the hour? Who wants to live a life dictated by calendars, alarm clocks, to-do lists and threaded fingers? If people around you set their clocks according to your do or die “bath at 7:10, office at 9:22, coffee at 10:16, boss-bitching at 11:33, lunch at 1:05, post-lunch gossip till 2:02, catch 40 winks at 3:00 and the 40-B at 5:00, quality family time at 6:35, brush-gargle-floss at 10:15 and kiss husband goodnight at 10:20” schedule, surely, there isn’t any life left to live after the first day, is there?
Compare that to getting up when you want. Not having to fight the 9 am traffic to reach office at 9:31 to find a red mark on the attendance register. Working for a few hours every day and making enough money to sleep off the rest of the month. Or to sponsor phoren holidays once in a while. Not having to minimise that interesting website when the boss does the rounds. Not worrying about that jealous colleague scoring brownie points with the boss by telling him you surf when you should be contributing to the company’s balance sheets. Having foreign films appreciation sessions – oh, who am I kidding – watching movies during weekdays when there is no work. Not knowing when the week ends and the weekend begins. Not knowing when the weekend ends or if it does end at all. Having enough and more time to catch up on all the books you’ve ever wanted to read. Having enough and more time to do nothing.
Hardly as interesting as many people’s lifestyles, I am sure. But at least it’s not half as ridiculous as a work-your-life-off-to-retire-penniless middle class existence. I am happy living an irregular life. At least it means I am doing it in my own terms. Maybe I should just write about it more often.
For the considerably a-for-mango life that I live, I'm not surprised my blog is just as irregular. So what do people like me do to make a habit out of something? More importantly can someone like me even carry on something for long enough to make it a habit in the first place? Not when I like my random lifestyle, I suppose.
Really. Who wants to wake up in the morning knowing exactly what is going to happen every hour, on the hour? Who wants to live a life dictated by calendars, alarm clocks, to-do lists and threaded fingers? If people around you set their clocks according to your do or die “bath at 7:10, office at 9:22, coffee at 10:16, boss-bitching at 11:33, lunch at 1:05, post-lunch gossip till 2:02, catch 40 winks at 3:00 and the 40-B at 5:00, quality family time at 6:35, brush-gargle-floss at 10:15 and kiss husband goodnight at 10:20” schedule, surely, there isn’t any life left to live after the first day, is there?
Compare that to getting up when you want. Not having to fight the 9 am traffic to reach office at 9:31 to find a red mark on the attendance register. Working for a few hours every day and making enough money to sleep off the rest of the month. Or to sponsor phoren holidays once in a while. Not having to minimise that interesting website when the boss does the rounds. Not worrying about that jealous colleague scoring brownie points with the boss by telling him you surf when you should be contributing to the company’s balance sheets. Having foreign films appreciation sessions – oh, who am I kidding – watching movies during weekdays when there is no work. Not knowing when the week ends and the weekend begins. Not knowing when the weekend ends or if it does end at all. Having enough and more time to catch up on all the books you’ve ever wanted to read. Having enough and more time to do nothing.
Hardly as interesting as many people’s lifestyles, I am sure. But at least it’s not half as ridiculous as a work-your-life-off-to-retire-penniless middle class existence. I am happy living an irregular life. At least it means I am doing it in my own terms. Maybe I should just write about it more often.
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