One Year Later

"So what do you guys do at night?" my friend T says.

"On the rare chance we get to go home at roughly the same time, we'll try and watch TV," I reply.

Wife says "We're watching True Blood."

"Any good?"

"Well, if you like the occult and people fucking the UnDead, then I guess it's ok," I say.

"Well, what else do you guys do?"

"We read in bed," Wife says. "Like old people."

But she smiles at me.

I'm back. But I'm not really here

I like being employed. But I'm ok with not working.

Why does that look so familiar?

During lunch at IKEA today, my colleagues and I were irritated by a group of siblings at the neighbouring table. Before you go all stereotypical and think 'What a non-parent thing to say,' try sitting next to 5 kids, each of whom have a furry, floppy toy duck that emits a high-pitched squeak when squeezed. Each of them. Squeezing. Squeaking. Giggling. Every. Single. Minute.

But it did get me thinking about the toy.

The device that makes the toy duck squeak is placed in the neck. That and the fact it has bulging eyes makes me wonder if the design is based on something rather specific. Pet shops always tell parents to be careful when mixing kittens and puppies with children because children often don't realise these tiny animals aren't toys. Pet strangulation is common.

And then you think about that toy.

A toy that only makes a squeaking sound when squeezed around the neck by tiny hands.

Makes you wonder: Why is it dolls and action figures always seem to lose their heads before their limbs?

According to plan

The sound of a home renovation is a terrible sound. Visually, it has in common with cosmetic surgery that necessary destruction of the thing you're trying to make pretty. It's like this initially; it's only temporary; it'll be beautiful in the end. These are things I tell myself every time I visit the new house...and get an eyeful of something that looks like a scene from Black Hawk Down.

Each time I enter the house I steel myself, and my jaw locks in a mask of stoicism I don't feel. Every step of the way has been a test of nerves as the contractor regularly starts a sentence with 'Hey, bro, can we talk?' with the same practiced, neutral politeness of an oncologist or funeral home director. And you realise that things can be going according to plan and yet need about 38 course corrections along the way.

But it's only temporary. Everyone I've spoken to has had the same stories, and they give the patronising smile of those who've forgotten how tough high school was just because they're in college. My experience is not unique, merely personal. Merely mine.

I hope I've not been a terrible, sulky, dramatic husband through all of this. Though I'm not going through this alone, I've occasionally demonstrated an ability to make people feel like they've left me to fend for myself. It's not true, even those times when I've felt so, just so I could wallow a bit.

But it looks nice so far.

It'll be beautiful in the end.

Motherfucker, it better be.

See you in the next life

This weekend in Malaysia, it's Cheng Meng (or Cheng Beng, depending on your dialect). Taoist devotees will make their annual pilgrimage to cemetaries or crematoriums to visit their dearly departed, spiff up the old headstone (or urn) and reminisce a little. But the Chinese are Chinese first. Regardless of religious persuasion, more than a few Chinese folk will be asking for lucky numbers they can buy at the local lottery booth. Also a must - burnt offerings.

Burnt offerings are a part of our culture.* They're also a thriving cottage industry, and though its roots are older than old, the products on sale each year are as progressive and in touch with modern trends as a fashion label. A quick primer for the unfamiliar: It's customary to burn offerings for those who have passed on so that they want for nothing in the next life. I don't use the word 'effigy' even though there people-shaped burnt offerings, because effigies are usually burnt in protest. Burnt offerings are quite the opposite.

This year, a few us accompanied a friend to one of the many Chinese shops in Section 17. And Section 17 is very Chinese (restaurant menus sometimes don't even feature English translations). My friend was buying just a few items for his grandparents. What you do is you pick out whatever you want and the boss puts it together for you in a box, neatly arranged in the correct order (the order is apparently important, and little things matter - the boss lady was insistent that the wrapper on one item be removed).

The Netherworld is referred to as 'Hell' but its meaning is quite different from the Judeo-Christian view of it. Well, maybe not different, but more...egalitarian in nature. Everyone ends up there, you just occupy a station in (the after)life closer to your karma. There are lotsa stuff you can buy with the prefix 'Hell' on it; paper replicas of things you'd use in life:

• Hell Notes. The preferred currency of the afterlife. Exchange rate roughly RM1.50 to one stack of I dunno, three hundred notes.
• Hell Pavilion laptops. HP can't be too happy about that.
• Cars. Chinese folk love auspicious number plates. Anything with 3, 6 or 8 is good. You can customise these with a marker pen.
• Electric massage chairs.
• Safes. Gotta put all those Hell Notes somewhere.
• Louis Vuitton Bags. Yup, still the monogram version. Also, you got all those Hell Notes. You gotta spend em on something.
• Guinness.
• Toiletry Bags. Toothpaste and tongue scrapers.

Two years ago, one of my uncles joked that the trend now was to burn petrol kiosks so the deceased could actually drive the cars your burned them. Similarly, there wasn't much point burning a swanky house if you didn't include a staff of maids to help maintain it.
I wonder if the Global Recession we're going through affects them. It should shouldn't it? After all, we're the ones running out of money to burn. Doesn't that make their economy linked to ours? Or do they have their own leaders working on stimulus packages?

This year though, something else caught my eye.
Among the myriad burnt offerings for sale, are schoolbags. Complete with pencil case, and cartoon characters on the front. Only kids need those.

* When I say 'our' I mean as a Straits Chinese and as a Malaysian Chinese. I'm not religious myself, and can hardly claim to be a keen observer of Chinese tradition, but these are the rites I - we - grew up with.

And still people stay

Of all the things to give up on, a job must be the most common.
Within the employed universe, my job isn't the hardest. Not even close.
Doctors Without Borders.
Missionary in the Congo.
Dude Cleaning Toilets.
Dude Making 3-Foot Buddha Head Carvings. At a rate of 17 heads each month. By hand.
These are hard jobs. You must come home totally drained.

Nor is it the most pride-swallowing or soul-destroying.
Politician.
Stand-up Comedian.
Clown For Hire.
Dude Selling Encyclopedias Door-to-Door.
Dude Asking You To Sign Up For Any Kind Of Worthy Cause With No Personal Benefit.
In fact, not quitting - especially after I've made these comparisons - is a point of pride. I'm made of better stuff, I shouldn't be ungrateful etc etc.

And at this point in time, quitting just doesn't seem responsible.

I also want to be a writer. Like a writer writer.
Which is perhaps the most common, no...the most cliche job in the world.

So the job I feel like quitting and the job I want are both common.
So, there's nothing special about me either way?
Hold on.
This can't be.
This is terrible.

This is common.
And still people stay.
And I'm becoming one of them.
That's what's terrible.

:'(

C'mon boy. Time to go to bed

My wife told me my dog was exceptionally friendly and affectionate on Sunday. He clung magnetically to my folks, and my in-laws who were over for dinner. He also climbed the stairs and peeked several times into the door of the home office. He usually wheezes slightly, but not that night.

The next morning, my folks found him; looking like he'd fallen asleep, leaving a warm spot on the floor. He was 15 / 105 years old.

My wife thinks he was looking for me that Sunday night.

But I wasn't there.

Coodie is a foodie who likes to drink smoothies.

Our favourite rhyme, sung one last time.

Say something nice

A good colleague and even better friend left last Friday.

They had an extremely emotional farewell for him at the local pub. They asked me to give a short send-off speech. I said:

'Personally, I'm glad you're gone.

Now there will be no Gold Standard to hold ourselves up to.

No impossible combination of really nice and really smart.

We can finally go back to all our old excuses:

That deadlines are too short, budgets are too small, and all clients are assholes.

We can once again tell ourselves that things are impossible.

Personally, I'm glad you're gone.

I just wish this didn't hurt so fucking much.'

It's thin ice time

I have never been fired from a job.

I remained employed throughout our last economic crisis, nearly a decade ago. I took my first copywriting job on what seemed like the eve of the recession and soonafter took a pay cut of 13%. The management promised to reinstate it. Nearly two years later, the economy improved (and the company worsened) sufficiently for me to quit. I don't know if anyone ever got their 13% back.

I'm slightly better off now, and I'm actually part of the kind of meetings I imagine my old company must've had before deciding to cut people's salaries. This morning's meeting painted a grim scenario, and laid out several survival  strategies. Money. Jobs.

This is a proving period. 

I'm going to be asked to do some grown-up things. 

I'm going to find out what I'm like in a shit storm.

I'm a little excited.

Surely this is the wrong reaction.

Today, I love you

When I ran about three hours earlier, the streets were clear of MPVs pouring school children onto the kerb. People have decided to stay in, out of respect because clearly, this day belongs to me.

Just 20 minutes ago, the view through my windshield showed the sky, painted the kind of perfectly colour-calibrated blue I’ve only seen in travel magazines. I see an airplane leaving contrail, a sharp line waiting for God’s signature. The sun, surprised to see me on the road so early this morning sends me a wink, achieved by bouncing a ray off the plane’s wing. A solar powered Elvis sparkle smile.

I shouldn’t be looking up, especially not while going at 90km/h. But there are about six cars on the road, all a respectful distance away. My Smart Tag beeps and the automatic arm of the toll booth raises, saluting. G’morning sir.

Five minutes ago, I walk into the office. I’m the only one here. The department is dark. I don’t miss a single one of them. I’m hungry now, and I walk over to my colleague’s cubicle. He seems to have appeared at my whim, almost as if his sole purpose was to offer me company at breakfast.

I’m posting this now, before the mood decays. Next week, the madness returns along with colleagues coming off their Chinese New Year break. They’ll bring with them their resentment and foul mood from having to end the always-too-short vacation. This brief lucid bubble of time punctured rudely by the office’s dominant, manic-depressive self.

But today, job, office, life, I love you.

I don't do resolutions

Of course, like everyone else,  I've done the whole New Year, New Leaf thing. And of course I want to do new things, do old things better.

But in recent years, I've had the same goal.

Each year, I want to be nicer to have around.

I had no list. I've never said it out loud. And I guess I didn't actually put it down in words till I was asked the other day. That person asked 'How many years have you succeeded?'

I don't know. That's a really good question.

That person has agreed to let me know next year.

Suddenly I have a resolution, a friend, and a tracking system.

I keep one, I keep them all.

Kewl.

Merry X'mas

In the last hour I have:

• Received a book
  
• Gotten my payslip
  
• Written a letter telling CFOs I can prove to them, in numbers, that I can save them money
  
• Gotten a bottle of honey
  
• Filled in my time sheet
  
• Written my first Twitter post
  

That last one is worth repeating here.

Realised that I've gotten away with so much this year. Have I used up all my blessings?

Merry X'mas everyone. I'll see you guys soon.

3 years to go. But who's counting?

It’s not new, this death-by-large-celestial-body thing.

The Mayans have known for years and didn’t bother with plans after 2012. Scientists have ‘postulated’ for yonks and done the math and the data says we’re totally fucked, plus or minus 2% error. And thanks to the wonderful Instant Expert technology that is the Internet, you’re not hearing this for the first time are you?

So why aren’t you scared? We’ve got 3 years and change! That’s nothing! That’s not even enough time to drop a bad habit. Why aren’t you and the other 6.7 billion poor saps out there having a good old-fashioned mass hysteria?

Couple of us at the office have kicked this around a bit (sure beats working).
Is it irresponsible to have children now?
Why bother with your career?
Should you just buy that new Golf GTi (on a five-year loan)
That apartment you like in Sentul West (paid up in 25 years!)
Should everyone should have one decent affair with someone they totally should not have an affair with?

But nobody’s afraid. Everyone’s living like there’s going to be a 2013. I mean, forget Global Warming. I guarantee you when the world becomes a big fireball you’ll see some climate change. They say if we don’t act now, in ten years we’ll all be dying slow, UV-irradiated, greenhouse-gassy deaths. By comparison, 2012’s just around the corner. And it’s practically instant.

And yet we continue to make 5-year plans. Paying the mortgage. Having babies.

I think it’s cos 2012 isn’t costing us money.

Look at GM. You’re bleeding cash and begging for a bailout. Suddenly, you’re ready to commit to new hybrid and electric cars? Bullshit. You’re committing to the continuation of your business. Not the preservation of the planet. Or you woulda kept the EV1.

At home, people are asking when the rear seatbelt ruling takes effect. Is it this year or in Januray? Why do you need a specific date to be sensible? Cos you’re more worried about your money flying out the window than your kid.

Remember the Millenium Bug? That scenario was pretty grim. Computers worldwide shutting down, traffic lights going buggy, power cutting out annoyingly while Dr Grey is performing open heart surgery. But it wasn’t a global blackout people feared. Companies spent a bunch of money cos they didn’t want Y2K to swallow their 401k. Their pensions. Their moolah. Not having a name didn’t matter if you didn’t have a penny to it.

Money it seems, is the most real thing in our world.
Never mind that most of it is digital, just one bank’s computer agreeing with another bank’s computer that yes, you have enough money to make this month’s Golf GTi payment.

Money is perhaps what distinguishes us from other forms of Earth life. No other species has trade. Chimpanzees don’t put a down payment of 10,000 bananas on a tree house. Ants – nature’s communists – don’t say ‘Fuck this. The other colony is willing to pay me twice the amount of aphids for this retaining wall! See ya!’ We created money to tell ourselves that we are worth something.

There is no way to calculate, and therefore to limit the financial impact of complete annihilation. So we don’t bother with it. Which is coincidentally how ‘hard’ science – like physics – works. If you can’t quantify it, it’s not real.

Any alien race that visits us first is always going to be technologically superior. So forget about launching an Independence Day style defense. No, our best bet is going to be if they understand commerce. If they come from a civilisation that sees profit as a thing of beauty.

Because that is mankind at its best.

The tripods thump up, a circular door irises open and the death ray comes out. The air goes electric with a slight whiff of ozone as the weapon charges.
And the solitary hope of all mankind walks up to the 2-story behemoth and says: “How much to NOT fire the death ray?”

Book List

‘Tis the season.

I’m making up a list in my head and I realise the list is shorter this year.

One I’m sorry to see go.
One quite the opposite.
One just isn’t here anymore.

I tend to give books.
A book comes wrapped and you know it’s one from the shape alone.
But you don’t know what book it is till you open it.
Few things seem to preserve their mystery so well after announcing themselves so plainly.

Books are also how I approach friendship. Certainly how I hope people feel being friends with me.
I know it’s you at a glance.
But I want to know what you are. What you're like.
And even if I know what you're about I won’t skip to the end.

First Draft

‘We’re having a meeting later tonight. I think we’ll have enough bodies for the cremation,’ says Wartika with a big smile.

I’m with the Wife (yes, upper caps W) and we’re having breakfast. Wartika works here, and from the way he instructs a few of the other waiters, I suspect he’s middle management. ‘I think we can get 30 bodies. It should be enough.’ Group cremations are how the Balinese send their dearly departed off into the afterlife. It’s not cheap, and some Balinese have been waiting for years to make this final journey.

The Chinese (don’t get all uppity, I’m one) don’t mind cremations. You can go into the ground or into the stove, but with all the offerings that get burnt to make you comfortable in the afterlife, our relationship with fire is well documented. More accurately, our relationship with suffering. Loss mustn’t just be felt, it should be displayed. Draw it out, make it public, and if you can, allow the whole funeral to deepen the hurt.

Just a week before flying to Bali, I was in Korea for the annual company trip (awful food, good company, and perhaps the first I’ve been on where people didn’t immediately want to fuck each other). I was in Group A. Sizeable companies tend to split employees into groups ensuring two things: that someone is left behind to carry on work; and the two groups almost never see each other, throwing a spanner into the esprit de corp machinery.

As I’m not part of upper management, a mid-air collision would only rob the company of one fairly dispensable writer. Upper management – CFOs, COOs, anything with a C in front – are also encouraged to take separate flights to ensure that the company does not go down with the Airbus A380 you’re on.
But when you travel with your family, you don’t make your wife and kids take a separate flight do you? And Wife and Kids trumps Chairman of the Board.
If we suddenly get into a we-have-lost-cabin-pressure type situation and we get sucked out of the window somewhere over the…wherever, there isn’t a succession plan.
Well, I don’t have one.
And I’ll venture most normal people don’t have one either.
We’re more prepared for what happens if 150 staff buy the farm than a family of four.

Wartika and his family, his fellow villagers have been waiting for this day. It’s something he slipped in between dressing for work and serving newlyweds banana pancakes and coffee.

On November 4, the first black man to become President of the United States won 297 seats when he only needed 270. And the first writer that made me want to become one died. Michael Crichton passed away at 66 of cancer. A week later, the husband of a former colleague crashed his car on the highway. He had a blood clot in his brain, they got it out, he went into a coma, and didn’t come out.

I still don’t have a game plan. At a point in my life where I have a lot more to live for. A friend tells me you tend to get down to it when you have kids.

So then. The first draft of my final will and testament, subject to revision:

• If I get into something where a machine has to breathe for me, unplug it. It’s ok. Let me go down.
  
• Call the Wife and (insert names of kids here). Call my folks, then my brother. Call my boss and tell him I won’t be showing up for work and apologise.
  
• Please keep it quiet, keep it small. Don’t try and religion it up. I worshiped my parents, my wife, and money.
  
• Find AT. He knows what song to play. And trust me – it’s a happy song. Listen to the bridge and the last verse.
  
• Cremation. Buy a tin of whatever house blend Starbucks is serving that week. Mix me in. Don’t bother spreading my ashes over some river or from a cliff. Give it to the Wife. At any point, I would’ve been happiest with her.
  

And somewhere – on the coffee tin in marker pen, I don’t care – have it said:

‘He was an asshole mostly. But he was a good father and he loved his wife. And Jesus, he was awesome in bed.’

Oh thank God

Two weeks ago, I went to church.

I’m not a lapsed Catholic (I’m not a lapsed anything, though my running record has been appalling this past month) so it wasn’t out of guilt, and I hadn’t had a close call, or any of these things. I went to a Catholic church because my dear friend is Catholic. In that sense, no different from being recommended a good Indian restaurant.

As is the format in churches (Catholic or otherwise) the priest gave a sermon by way of a parable:

One day, a boy was walking along a beach when he saw that it was covered in starfish. They had been washed in by the tide and were stranded on the beach. The boy was very sad for the starfish and felt compelled to save them. He began gathering them up in his arms but his arms were small and he dropped almost as many as he carried, and never got any of them far enough to reach the water.
A man passing by saw the boy and said to him ‘Young man, you cannot save the starfish. They are already dead or dying. There is only one of you, and so many of them.’
The boy replied ‘I can try.’
The man smiled sadly and said ‘Yes. But it won’t make a difference.’
The boy stooped and picked up the starfish nearest to him and said to the man:
‘You’re right. But it will make a difference to this one.’
And he flung the starfish, sending it back into the ocean.

It’s a nice story.

He followed up with another sermon, which was captured in his line ‘We were put on Earth to glorify God.’
I don’t agree with this.

I’m not religious. I have many friends who are devout in their faiths and I understand how it’s a positive force in their lives. I think the high point of any religion is to make you into the best version of yourself you can be. And to me, the best version of one’s self is to be able to be good to, and good for, another person.
And here’s the rub: I don’t think we need a God to do that.
I think we have enough power within ourselves to be good to each other.
So the idea of God basically saying ‘Dude, I’m a star. You’re just a fan club I made.’ doesn’t appeal to me.

I told my friend this a few days after and he said:

“This is how I took that sermon. God wants us to be good to each other. And we were created in His image. If we’re being good to each other, then we are glorifying him.”

And my friend has a way of putting these things into perspective.
I’m not any more religious than I was two Sundays ago, but something has changed. And it changed before I stepped into the church.

Like I said. I’m not religious. I’m not entirely convinced a God exists.
I don’t (right now) feel I need one.
I have found my higher power. And I married her.

Now here’s the thing.
Against this very secular (and frankly, not terribly original) sentiment, something has been planted within me, and seems to be growing.

I feel blessed.
Which is why I went to church. I wanted to be thankful to someone – anyone – for this other person whom I seem to have been given. Of course, I’m not completely sentimental. I can speak fluently (and have) to others on how it doesn’t need to be divine intervention, or kismet, or The One. It could very well be just math.

In fact, after that week, I also felt I didn’t need to go to church to be thankful (thank God I’m not Catholic, or that would’ve been an excuse right there).

But I’m thankful nonetheless. Certainly after July 5, I shall never be ungrateful for this life again. Someone picked me, threw me back into the ocean, and made a difference to me. And I’m not even a star.

The Shortest Story I've Ever Told

Me: Will you marry me?
Her: Yes.

Dear A4: Episode 4

Dear Max,


Model HD-10, huh?
Yeah I remember. Everyone remembers. You were top of your game.
IN THE 70s.

A HD-10?
Are you kidding me?
How old’s your model now? 15 years? And you still expect to getting all the hot documents? You still think you can keep doing 300 sheets a day?
You’re dreaming.
WAKE UP.

Look at the competition man:
HD-60s with the magnetic head so they clean up after themselves.
Staple-free staplers.
Industrial strength staplers. Extra long cartridges.
Email, hu-llo.
You can’t compete.
Stop trying to re-live the glory days.

Listen. I sympathise with you, I really do.
When it was your time, you were beautiful.
But it’s not your time anymore. You not being able to take the capacity isn’t what’s wrong here. It’s your unwillingness to evolve.
Move on man.
Think of all you’ve accomplished. Nobody’s stapled more documents than you. Not by a long shot. And between you and me, the way they make em these days, the new models aren’t gonna have half your product life span. They’re on their way out too. They just don’t know it.

But you. You can do all sortsa things now.
Settle down with a nice paper clip (Or two, hey, no judgments my brother).
Relax.
Find yourself a nice gig doing invoices.
Nice honest work, and you get to stay active.
You need to accept that it’s time for you to retire.
And you need to learn that it can be the best time of your life.


A4

P.S. My sister says hi. Said you’d remember. Dude, I don’t even wanna know.

Dear A4: Episode 3

Dear A4,


I am a model HD-10.
That’s right.
I say HD-10 and you know what I’m about. You can see me in your head. You hearda me.
At this point in my career, it is no longer boastful to say I have been through more paper than you could possibly imagine. It’s just a fact. After my first year, I thought it was easier to count them in reams. Now I don’t even bother.
First I started slow. Just memos. Two sheets at a time, six, seven times a day. standard stuff. Then word got around and I’m doing them practically a ream a day. Didn’t even need a break in between. Next thing you know, I’m doing whole proposals. I’m talking 16-pagers.
Nothing I couldn’t staple.
Secretaries? The fucking love me, man.
I mean, you bring em, you line em up, make em lie flat, I’ll staple em.
I’ll staple em good.
That is, until lately.
I dunno what’s up. I mean, one day, they bring in this new proposal and it’s nothing I haven’t done before like a dozen times in a row.
Then just before I’m about to penetrate, they stop.
They brought in this beautiful glossy attachment. A brochure.
Slim, glassy UV varnish and I’m not talking none of that cheap art card shit either.
This one was classy.
And then I panicked.
I’m just pushing through, just going straight into them and I’m reaching page 19, no problems. Fucking smoove.
But I see that attachment and I can’t push through. I can’t go in.
They tried changing the cartridge but it didn’t work.

Now I’m back doing memos.
Memos.
Little two-pagers!
You gotta help me man.


Max Stapler

Dear A4: Episode 2

Dear Zeerox,


First of all, let me set your mind at ease. You are not a murderer.

Murder is what O.J. Simpson did. Murder is singular, and in many cases, a crime of passion, completely out of one’s normal behaviour.

You, my disgusting little friend, are a perpetrator of mass genocide.
You are a metal, multi-featured, 50-pages a minute, page-collating, copy-sorting Hitler.
Have you no morals? No conscience, no shame? No SOUL?
Do you not feel anything as you lay waste to acres of forest?
Course you do, you sick twisted fuck.
You love it.
You live for it.
All those murderous, massacring MBAs cheering you on as you rip through another ream of paper. Paper that’s barely out of the wrapper.
Paper that coulda been something.
A blank canvass for poetry; designs for a new efficient mode of transport; the formula for a new energy source.
But you just cut that short you asshole.
You destroyed innocent potential.
And for what?
To perpetuate an entire generation of mediocrity? For people who couldn’t recognise an original idea if the words ‘original’ and ‘idea’ were arranged consecutively in a sentence?
I did some checking too.
You’re a bad speller.
The letter you sent me wasn’t the first draft was it dyslexia boy?
What was it? Four, five reprints before you got it right?
All the things they built into you and a spell-checker wasn’t one of them.
You coulda asked for help.
But you just reprinted anyway.
Because you secretly love this.
You did this to yourself.
And you’ll never change.
Do me a favour, don’t come crying to me you pathetic loser.
You make me sick.


A4.

P.S. Your mother’s lens is dirty from copying all that ass. Everyone knows it.