One Hundred Years of Slumber

What the bloody Hell is wrong with me?!

Woke. Showered. Sleepy. Cleaned my room. Soaked my laundry. Ate. Sleepy. Read horoscope. Watched Grimm. Wrote and read poems. I fell asleep again. Every little thing I do keeps making me want to sleep and I have no way to prevent this from continuing. Something is not right. Some other witch put a hex on me? All I ever do is yawn all day. Like a tired kitten. I very much would like to think that this is a sign of my dying. I shall die shortly in my sleep. Falling into one hundred years of slumber. Not knowing who I was before. And when my true love finally finds me, he shall kiss me with a touch so magical that I should rise and feel brand new.

But who wishes to be my true love and still will be alive one hundred years from now? Edward?

I so miss you. At least I think I do. March has thirty-one days and all I could amass are only eighty-seven articles thus far. Missing six items from the contract! How purposeless my days have been. Napping. Trying not to fall asleep during the day, after I have slept for eight or nine hours in the morning. The school manager texted to my phone and asked if I could substitute next Monday to Thursday in an elementary school. I had to decline since this school is too problematical. I taught there many times and things went awry on several days. Not exactly doable.

Holy Hell, I am either sleepy or hungry. Dozing off for no reason. Waking up searching for food. What have I become? I feel like I'm turning into some wicked underground elf with no life but food and sleep! Cursing everyone and everything. Hggghhhh —

And the dreams have gone back to school. I was having a trial for a Creative Writing course. I liked it but couldn't be sure which path to take: only the class that I enjoyed or applying for the complete program to earn a degree. The good thing is that I don't have nightmares anymore. All my recent dream episodes are friendly and neutral. Nothing taxing. I need to pray again to meet my true love, even if it's only in a dream.

Saturday, March 31, 2012, 10:57 – 11:39 PM

One hundred years of slumber is from Charles Perrault's story "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood".

Sleeping Beauty

Flesh-Eating

Oh, I may be your whore

for the right amount of dowry:

a pound of your flesh, cut afresh

from the edge where it's darkest

Only sinful meat is tastiest

You, too, may steal my first kiss

but promise me this:

Soon after, I shall bite the tip

of your tongue where it's lewdest

Chewing with a smile so sweetest

This conniving conscience

of mine is open for an auction

It shall be yours when your bid

contains my kind of currency:

past woe and future tragedy

My pen, sharper than a dragon's

fang, shall slice away a drip of

elegy, one laden with succinct

sorrow, if you dare to feed me

your heart by the morrow

The glimmer in these eyes

shall be your palest moon and

fiery Hell, should you vow to

bring me my consolation prize:

fractures of your smarting bone

Fondle my galvanic bosoms

any time you please, so long as

your charm knows how to tease

With a treasure chest so full of

fractious fright and holy horror

But no, love, you shall not scar

my sex, even if you save me

a cask of your consentual blood

You wouldn't dream to fertilize

my colloquial bitchery

Friday, March 30, 2012, 3:47 AM –

Saturday, March 31, 2012, 6:34 PM

A pound of your flesh is from William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice.

How about Another First Kiss?

Chastity matters. It culminates the embodiment of all virtues I believe in. Even when the whole world thinks it's obsolete, impractical, and unattractive, I will still preserve the purity of my flesh and soul. I wouldn't want to live my life any other way.

Living in Indonesia, where fifty percent of its population is still religious, taught me that waiting to have sex with the one I will marry is admirable. It's not old-fashion, or embarrassing. We don't get any pressure to lose our virginity as soon as we start high school. There is, of course, the routine of dating and having a boy/girlfriend. When you're cool, or popular, it follows that you need to assert your fame by making it public that you're dating someone. Climbing that social hierarchy.

I, being a rebellious nonconformist, don't follow what everyone does. My parents are hippie Muslims whose extreme level of tolerance showed me that there is no problem with being myself. Including when it means seeming eccentric and out of place. I never had the need to fit in as much as the other kids did. I created my own world where everything is safe and untouchable. It didn't count whether I had friends or not. There were always my novels, my diary, and me. I needed no other.

As such, I didn't wear what other girls wore, go to parties and gathering, or want to have a boyfriend. Perhaps my body didn't develop normally, in terms of its sexual maturity. Kissing, or touching, or anything sexual doesn't seem to intrigue me as much as vocabulary does. I can't tell why. Some extraterrestrial green creatures abducted me and replaced my brain? Most probably.

And occasionally sew a lovely dress from a curtain...

Lust is not completely absent, nonetheless. I do exhibit libidinous urges but only very rarely, like when I'm ovulating, which covers... one or two days in every month. But it doesn't convince me to fornicate.

Truth is: I'm a prude. The worst of my kind. It disgusts me to know that unmarried people perform obscenity anytime they wish. Aren't they ashamed of what they do? The amount of immorality they practice?  Today, when everything is sexualized, people commit adultery because they sense no sacredness in marriage. Children as young as twelve indulge in sex just to feel seasoned. What is the point in that? Nothing but contamination. Filth.

Why waste myself for some men who only pass by? They don't love me enough to want to stay. There will never be another first kiss. My body and mind must be intact. Brand new. Not secondhand and used by somebody other than the man I marry. I shall only give my first kiss to the man who loves me dearly, wholeheartedly. It will never do if he's not the one. Should he never exist, I will gladly die unkissed. Chaste. Staying true to what is right.

And the best part of it all? I don't require God and religion to adopt strong moral standards. There's this thing called conscience. Listen to it.

Friday, March 30, 2012, 10:08 – 11:28 PM

How about another first kiss is from They Might Be Giants' song "Another First Kiss".

Giselle

Haunted

I recently mentioned I did not dreams of school anymore. I was wrong. Just as I began to speculate that they had deserted me, they came seeping through my mind, twice in a row.

First, I was a substitute teacher covering for one of those missing foreign slackers in a private high school in Jakarta. Very realistic. The school looked dreadfully old, like one from a colonial era when the Dutch was still here. Students wearing their white uniforms sitting on their chairs in neatly aligned rows. I asked them to do their English exercise, but they refused. And then, entered their regular English teacher telling me to quiz two of them with the task he instructed. Something went wrong and I was trying to escape the vicinity. Looking for a way out, like the school wanted to cage me there.

The second one was where I was a student. In high school. The Civics teacher sexually harassed my classmate so she and I reported him to the principal. He was cunning and he reported us earlier, accusing that we did something bad in his class. I was furious and defended my friend as best as I could. Fighting authority. Righting what's wrong. Injustice. One of the recurrent themes in many of my dreams.

In the afternoon, I dreamt of reviving a wilting plant. It was a place that appeared like my new house (my parents plan to move to another house but they haven't found something good enough). The front yard had oval gray stones and heavy chains, much like the style of my grandmother's house in the 1980s. A merging of the past and future.

Friday, March 30, 2012, 9:31 PM
Seedlings

Slovenly

Oh. My. God. Somebody, slap me. I am as useless as the most useless mooncalf can ever be. Four hours of attempting nothing but napping (after sleeping for a whole bunch of nine eternal hours) and then going out of my room simply to munch on a chocolate-and-jelly sandwich. Three slices of bread. Still craving potato chips but too lazy to walk the five-minute expedition to the supermarket. The day is itching hot as a desert cactus. Humid. Mosquito-infested. Doomed. It sings everyone a lullaby of sloth and slumber. I want to die. I so truly do. What is wrong with these drowsy spells all over again? Am I sick or something? Even when I showered right before bed time, I woke feeling like a pile of decomposed garbage. Moist, rotten, and pulpy. There is nothing more I desire but to strip and bury myself in a sparkling bluest private pool in Bali. Drenching my lungs with the coolest water and gradually losing consciousness. The best thing that happened today was when the white-yellow kitten hopped onto my bed, rubbing his face on mine for a few minutes. Then, he went outside. Looking so dazed and curious. At least, his habitual greeting made me feel not so alone anymore. I feel so alone. Kittens are my only friends, incapable of hurting me. All my life, nothing ever changes. Not even those school dreams.

Friday, March 30, 2012, 7:25 PM

Mooncalf by Asteriameller

Only Slightly Less Than I Loved You

Old tiny cotton dress, as short as covering my hips. Its right strap torn this afternoon when I woke, showing the milky whiteness of my bare cleavage. My damp skin smells like drops of orange sweat. Too gloomy to shower. I'll do it later once I'm done writing.

Whose strong manly aggressive hand wishes to rip the left strap of my dress? Let's turn this diary into erotica, shall we? I always look most tempting before shower, with my maddening mermaid hair.

Another uneventful day where I get to play a lazy bum. Doing absolutely nothing to enrich my psyche. Sleepless Sunday and Tuesday, and then hibernation on Monday and Wednesday. My biological rhythm is ruined. Starting my day feeling gluttonous and tired. I wanted to have some potato chips. But all I have is chocolate chip cookies. Food is unhealthy. Only the tasty kind, that is.

Dreams, dreams, what were they? Funny how I miss the longer part but recall the first one. I was a pop star traveling to Paris, or some other European city. Getting out of an antique black car in front of a hotel, speaking in Japanese and then French. No, I don't know either language in reality. The setting reminded me of the fifties. And I, too, wore similar bobbed hair, tight dress, and that tiny hat. Imagining I was Sylvia Plath.

I remember I was still viewing my second unknown dream just as I began to unite with the living. But it escapes my memory. What could it possibly be? Should have documented it when my mind was still vigilant.

Lately my dreams have no relation to school or kittens. Which, I detect as free from suppressed tension or unfulfilled yearnings. There were uncountable scenarios where I was always late to attend a class or finish a test. Those were the peripheries of my waking woe, being frustrated with teaching. Kittens were obviously something I longed to possess, since they numbered to hundreds in my dreams. My crazy-cat-lady enterprise.

Living as slovenly as I may delivers a fascinating array of inconsistent fantasies. Like seeing different movies every night. I wonder where those nightmares go. But anything is still better than visualizing Steven. I'm glad it never happens anymore. Life is grand.

Thursday, March 29, 2012, 7:31 – 10:17 PM
Only slightly less than I loved you is from Darren Hayes's song "Nearly Love".
Miranda Kerr by Terry Richardson

Imprisoned Moth

Her fuchsia wing, the other bronze,

softly muttering their silty incantation

They aim for his liquid velvet eye

where it's safest and coldest

Prancing to enchant with delicacy

Persuasion of sinuous meditation

which eventually blinds

Parasitic, lubricant like love,

the two eyelike dots flap and flutter

Her one leg limping across the sky

And the day is done in filmy yellow

like scattered old photographs

raining down from forgiving clouds

He watches those feathery arms

How their brackish frictions whizz

nearing to brush his flesh

Mechanized maneuvers minify

chanting leagues of inflorescence

intricate as deceit, so like synastry

In a makeless synthesis —

pheromones raging all around,

she is frightened for her life

Anticipating the worst, sucking

lunar mead from the tip of her

proboscis, praying for lenity

Flaming geraniums, maroon

and maudlin, 

           a rectangular casket

What looks like sanctuary

imprisons her voracity

           Dead as desolation

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 10:06 AM –

Thursday, March 29, 2012, 6:46 PM

Certain Kind of Sadness

He was near-romance. The only I ever tasted. But like everything else in my life, it was all a lie. I shouldn't go over this a million times. Nothing will ever change. I can't love him anymore. And he only sees me as a tool, not even a person. Just something to quench his irrepressible appetite. There's no regret. Only questions.

By now, I know what quasi-love felt like. How does it feel when it's real? Will it lift you up as if you had invisible wings? Will it trigger a smile on your face even when nothing is worth smiling for? Will it prompt you to rise earlier than the sun cause you can't wait to see the person you desire most? Will it make you happiest? Luckiest?

I can recite betrayal in seven hundred variants. The edification that the person I have talked to for almost three years can change in one night. The shattering sound of unfaithfulness. The acid that corrodes my heart knowing I have no worth. How does it feel when you fully trust someone? Does it warrant safety? Like you can never be afraid of anything anymore? Does it make you cherish life?

Naivety was the worst thing I have committed. Assuming someone is better than he truly is foul. What was I thinking? He told me he missed talking to me. All my life, I have no friends. No one wishes to talk to me simply cause he wants to. I thought he would be different. But he isn't. He talked to me to gain the only reward he wants: sex. When he realized he wouldn't obtain such a thing from me, he sourced another victim. It never matters. She can be anyone at all, as long as she is physically arousing. Doesn't have to be me.

The time wasted might be unnecessary. But the lesson learnt is more valuable than all education in the world. Men are shallow. They can't understand love, or emotions. Their brains are dull as play-dough. Even when civilization advances and technology develops faster than ever, men will always be rudimentary as their cavemen predecessors. Psychological refinement is impossible for them. And that is life.

Envy sometimes arises, when I see those who work their way to secure a decent relationship, or marriage. Not once have I known how it feels to be adored. To be wanted for my entire existence. Someone who connects to my soul and overlooks all the superficialities that never count. I face another new day to observe what it brings. A flicker of empty hope that never satiates.

Happiness is as imaginary as love.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 3:16 PM –

Thursday, March 29, 2012, 4:59 PM

Certain kind of sadness is from Gotye's song "Somebody I Used to Know".

Rainbow rain by Penguin Lamp

Imago

Noun. Psychoanalysis. An idealized concept of a loved one, formed in childhood and retained unaltered in adult life. (Dictionary.com)

In elementary school, we had those Japanese cartoon series on afternoon and Sunday TV. The most renowned for boys was Voltus. I watched it since my brother did. It highlighted the emblematic characters of any Japanese children's show: that reckless, boyish hero, and his much mature, aloof sidekick. I always fall for the sidekick.

Long black hair. Misanthropic. Tall. Slender. Mysterious. Skillful. Strong. Loyal. Either artistic or musical. Traditional. Now that I think of it: very, very tantalizing. He would always exude that alluring aura coming from every little gesture he made. And that was the origin of my idealized version of a male.

Thayer Mangeress fits my imago. I discovered his portrayal in the movie Teenage Dirtbag not long ago. Poetic, bullying, spiteful, nonconformist, impulsive, and aggressively romantic. Precisely like Plath with testosterone excess. I wonder where I can find someone like him off screen... Is there such a man? If there is one, I haven't seen him. I doubt that he even exists.

The bullying part is stimulating since it reminds me of my fifth-grade crush Richie. He would terrorize me daily when we shared the same desk in fourth grade. I love how Thayer targeted Amber for no particular reason. Much because he had feelings for her. I am absolutely sure Richie did that to me to channel his unexplainable childhood attraction. But I was nine. How was I supposed to diagnose things as convoluted as that? We should have never parted.

From then on, I stored Richie's facets deep inside my subconscious. Only until I saw Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in X-Men did it surface. I realized that dominant men entice me — sexually. Someone who takes control. Deliberate. Fierce to the point of exercising savagery. He knows what he wants and he will get it. A predator hunting for his prey. There's nothing sexier than that.

However, Thayer's destructive tendencies are not something I adore. Drinking and consuming drugs. Taking advantage of a girl simply to make another girl jealous. These traits must be eliminated. Then, he would be perfect. Pinning me onto a wall while reciting his wild, erotic poetry. H-E-A-V-E-N.

Mad. Mad thoughts.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 5:22 – 9:10 AM
Image is a screenshot from Teenage Dirtbag.

Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give a Damn

Paper-cut after teaching. I need to broadcast this ordeal to the whole planet before I perish from running out of blood. Oh, the tragedy!

The Internet is now a place of trivialities. Everyone does it. Competing to publicize every negligible incident that happens to us hourly. Frankly, world, I don't give a damn, either. That's why I blog and refrain from any other abominably famous social media sites. Yes, I know I occasionally quote some lines on Twitter. But they're all nonsensical music junk. Consider they're illusory. Disregard those. And don't read my blog. It's none of your execrable concern.

"Papa said you were late to work this morning," Mother questioned me on Monday night while I was having dinner alone. She was folding her clothes.

"Not late," I said. "But he chose that narrow lane with the graveyard. It's always crowded there. We were stuck for thirty minutes."

"I know. He told me. He does that all the time! Taking those rat-runs anywhere he goes."

"That's so irritating! I told him to take the main road. He wouldn't listen."

"Are you teaching again tomorrow?"

"No. Wednesday."

"What time?"

"The same. In the morning."

"Papa will drive you again."

"Nooooo... I don't want to be late." It's too trying to be in the same car as he is. Hearing his calling people Satan every time something irks him.

"Leave thirty minutes earlier."

"No! Too early. Just tell him to take the main road through ITC." Maybe Father will finally listen when Mother scolds him not to take those infinitesimal trails that are not intended for cars. We'll see five hours from now. Will I regret not taking a cab?

My body is healing on its own. I think the hibernation helped restore what was left of my verve. Still need to catch up with the missing blog posts for yesterday. Five more to go. And to pollute your screen with inconsequence, three photos I took from work:

On my right side of the desk: analgesic, computer, mouse,
Oreo pencil case, hand sanitizer, cough syrup, lozenges, energy drink.

On my left: notebook and pen, textbooks, student's record,
erasers, markers, AC controller, tissue.

And in the middle of it all...
the narcissistic teacher.
Posing like any other Vainbook demivierge.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 12:54 – 3:10 AM

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn is from Gone with the Wind movie.

But Obscurity Is Forever

Pain distills my form even after hours of perpetual slumber. Teaching is never constructive for my writing. Favoring money proves unwise.

So I didn't rest at all on Sunday night. My fault for having a vampiric sleeping schedule that lasts from six in the morning till three in the afternoon. When Monday's work concluded and I was home, I dozed from nine at night till Tuesday noon. Showered. Ate. Watched an old cartoon I had always wanted to see: Real Monsters. Still exhausted. Napped again in the afternoon. Four till seven o'clock. Eighteen hours in total. The longest I've ever had. And yet, the fatigue stays. Maybe I'm dying? Farewell, world...

I promise to conjure drama out of the simplest thing. You just watch.

Three episodes of varied dreams I witnessed. First, something vague. I can't remember it well enough now. Perhaps about a young man plunging into a large body of water, like a pool. Was there a giant sea mammal slowly smothering him? His face was wrapped in a sticky foamy bubble, while he was desperately trying to free himself. Nothing saved him.

Second, a Glee dream. I was in a colossal open garden with beautifully sculpted topiaries. It's something like the one I saw in nineteenth century movies, where there's a mansion and an adjacent orchard with a fountain and everything pretty. Blooming flowers, birds. There were other people with me. A few of them were the cast of Glee. Singing, dancing, acting out something that seemed pleasant. Uncertainty ensued. Dreams are only traceable when they're fresh and recent. My aging memory is failing me.

The last one, where dinosaurs came to life. I was playing a computer game, from inside my dad's car. But the screen was human-size. It appeared like a safari for games. Weird. The nasty brown gigantic armored dinosaurs should herd and collect the tiny orange long-necked ones. And... after some time, the landscape became real. The dinosaurs stamped all over the park, crushing things and people.

Does everyone emulate such unusual dreams as what I regularly rehearse? Or is it because I prefer imagination over reason? I have been seeing fantastic strangeness since I was very little. It never stops. Through all these nights I have lived, ninety-nine percent of them are unsettling nightmares. One percent might bring contentment. But I still don't know what happiness is.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 7:36 – 11:28 PM

But obscurity is forever is from Napoleon Bonaparte's quote.

Orchard

Trapped

"Which route will it be?" Father asked while driving me to work.

"The usual. Through ITC."

"Let's try shortcuts," he turned left, instead of going straight.

WHAT THE HELL. "There's going to be heavy traffic that way! I went there before!" Darn it. I would be late.

"It's passed seven. Traffic jam was at six, when the kids went to school." He took those tiny streamlike paths in between houses and schools and shops and a graveyard. The space was so limited that we had to give way for the cars from the opposite direction. Taking turns.

And I was right. We were trapped in a queue right after the graveyard. Immobile. For thirty bludgeoning minutes! It felt like eternity. Motorcycles piling all around the car. Everyone was impatient and hostile, waiting to have his chance to proceed forward. Garbage carts crossing the street. Comical chaos. I wanted to take pictures of this third-world-country phenomenon, but anxiety ruled it out.

The 1992 car looks much more
horrendous in reality.

There's no AC in my father's prehistoric derelict car. No sun visor for my side. The sun furiously burnt my china doll face. All sweaty. I kept silent, cursing his idiotic decision inside my seething brain. He was the one who shouted disturbing profanity aloud, "These satanic bus drivers should be arrested!"

Gosh. His personality is almost as inimical as my psychopathic brother's. So verbally abusive. I can't comprehend how my mother puts up with his temperament for thirty-four years. Men are barbaric. They misjudge things and still blame others for it.

I was sure I would be running late, but I didn't bother to check the clock on my phone. Too vexed to do anything. Miraculously, we arrived before the first session starts: nine minutes to eight. But next time, I swear I'm taking a taxi.

Only one class of speaking tutorial in the morning. Going sooooooo very slow and dull. I almost crashed cause I didn't sleep at all last night. It's clear that I'm falling asleep no matter what the course is today. This menial, useless job. I'd rather be sailing. If I didn't have any motion sickness, that is. Mango-flavored energy drink worked for a few hours to boost my concentration earlier. Now I'm disoriented. Coffee should save me.

I want to go hooooome... Can't tell what I'm writing anymore.

Monday, March 26, 2012, 11:13 AM – 1:16 PM

Overdosed

Cough syrup my friend, I shall suck you dry as I would perform fictitious oral sex. Somebody, censor my immoral diction. But seriously, how does oral sex taste? Disgusting?

I had to gulp a tiny bottle of this gluey black medicine yesterday. My throat felt horrible. It's better now, though not completely cured. A month of leisure, lazing around as a certified idler, everything went well. Just as I'm about to teach, cough attacks. Ill-timing. Maybe I'm jinxed. These viruses must enjoy ruining my career a little too much. And the numbing headaches are not helping, either. Expectorant and analgesic. Sickness turns me into a junkie.

Shower at half past five. Breakfast. Fetch the bags and laptop. Leave at seven since the first session starts at eight. Luckily, Dad is here in Jakarta, so he will drive me to work. I won't have to run to catch a cab, competing with ten million other worker ants. Such spoilt brat. I'm embarrassed. Really. But still too apathetic to learn to drive. Besides, when someone else drives me, I can consume the time to put on theatrical doll make-up. Never leave home without it.

Mom was still awake earlier at three. She said she would go to the doctor with Dad today. "What time will you be back?" I asked. "In the afternoon," she answered. "Could you... pick me up at the office at five?" I knew she would agree. "Sure." HA. My spoilt brat level has gone up to a zillion points over the seventh sky. I love having adoringly accommodating parents.

At around four, the home phone rang. No kidding. We are blessed with insane retards everywhere. "The phone is ringing," my mom was at my door. "Why don't you pick it up," I suggested. "NO. It's too scary to do!" She had a point. Who on Earth would call my house at four in the devilish morning? Only zombies and psychopaths.

Go to the damnest Hell, stalkers.

Monday, March 26, 2012, 3:50 – 5:00 AM

Poison by Emilia Ungur

Starlight

Blood dripping down my left leg. Darker than death. I took off my clothes hurriedly. Ruby stain on my rainbow dress. Gory. Womanly. Filthy. Enchanting like a sea of rose petals.

This evening was a re-run of my sixth-grade incident. My earliest menstrual days were always confusing. I was eleven. Clueless as moss. Seeing blood coming out was more of a shock than it was enlightening. I didn't tell my mother or anyone. One day after school, the horror gushed down. I tried to wipe it with paper from my notebook so that no one would see. Not knowing what to do. So young. So ashamed. Terrified. Inexperienced.

Today in the shower, raptly I watched how thick the redness was. Almost black. Flowing, diluting in clear water. Dispersed into pink. Burgundy. Translucent like glass. It's been twenty years since my first period. How time flies. Facing this monthly curse used to disconcert me so. Where did my childhood go?

Wearing clean white shirt and scarlet skirt for my elementary school uniform. Receiving petty allowance from my father. Buying icy overly-sweetened drink outside my school gate on a dry summer day. School finished at around one. Children were running out, cheering. We couldn't wait to get home as fast as we could. My classmates. The towering trees and the rows of houses surrounding my school building. I can reanimate everything there to the sound of the afternoon breeze. Take me back to 1991, where simplicity means happiness.

The sky was turning white when I fell asleep in the morning, and it was forming dark as I woke. My computer clock indicated 5:33 PM. Eleven hours of uninterrupted slumber.

Magical. I saw her in my dream. The wingless little angel. She was so pretty, like blanketed starlight. So beautiful that I didn't want anything else. A sleeping bundle of purity. I watched and watched her for hours. Serenely lying on my bed. So tiny. Touching her soft cheek filled my heart with sad gladness, for wishing she had been mine. But she wasn't. And I love her all the same.

Baby, baby, baby. You will wait for me, won't you? I love you so, starlight. My starlight.

Sunday, March 25, 2012, 11:59 PM –

Monday, March 26, 2012, 1:11 AM
Starlight

Twenty-Six Dollars

I slay wolves at night.

Lips red as blood. Orange long cotton dress. Brown woolen hood covering my anarchic hair. Beaded Balinese flip-flops. A debit card tucked in a tiny cartoon pouch.

With hastened small steps, I walked to the supermarket. It was half past seven. Passing a house whose dog viciously barked at me. A gray stray tomcat stealthily rummaging through the waste in a wooden box across the cemetery. The streets were sullenly dusky, except for those tiny yellow lights from the porches. No one else was seen. Not even the shy waxing-crescent moon.

Abruptly, evil wolf spirits ambushed me. A pack of them surging from the locked cemetery at my left. Rabid, bloodthirsty, they formed a circle around where I stood. "Where do you think you're going, woman?" the leader of the pack sniffed my ashen face. I could smell the rotten deadness of his breath.

"I am not afraid of any of you," my grunt was belligerent with murderous intent.

"What are you going to do? Cry wolf? he sneered. "And which human will believe you? We only exist in your psychotic mind."

Would you believe me if I told you this scene actually happened two hours ago? Life is so much more enlivening in my head. Vivid fairy-tale imagination running wild. Five minutes of walk to the supermarket should be good enough for a battle with unthinkable monsters. Though the wolves only materialized while I started typing this. I was thinking more about a serial killer assault while I was heading to the shop. The effect of watching Criminal Minds, apparently.

Safe and sound, I entered the threshold of the supermarket and took one red shopping basket, filling it with all these:

A pack of facial tissue.

Two packs of feminine napkins.

A pack of apple shower gel.

A pack of orange air freshener.

A tiny bottle of cheap girlish perfumery. Summer sunflower.

Three packs of pink shavers.

A bottle of hand sanitizer.

A bottle of coconut milk shampoo.

Two bottles of mango energy drink for two days of teaching.

Two bottles of cough syrup.

A jar of chocolate hazelnut bread spread.

Two bottles of fruity yogurt.

Two boxes of ginger herb powder.

Six packs of instant noodles.

A bottle of honey.

Two packs of mint lozenges.

A pack of decrusted bread.

One slice of juicy beef bread.

All those for a total of twenty-six American dollars. Pretending that one dollar equals ten thousand Indonesian rupiahs (it's actually nine thousand, but I'm too lazy to calculate that, so shut up!).

Indonesian standard of living must sound unbelievably cheap. We don't get that much of wage, either. After six years of teaching for the same language school, I make fifteen dollars an hour. Generally, a college graduate who works full time here will earn five to eight hundred dollars per month, if she has six years of professional experience as I do.

Grocery list versus slaying wolves. Which one enthralls you more? If it were up to me, I'd rather live in my psychotic, super-imaginative mind. Reality displeases. So do people.

Sunday, March 25, 2012, 8:45 – 9:57 PM

Unchallenging

I'm bored. And dumb. Was playing those GRE vocabulary games on Dictionary.com just so I didn't feel so dumb anymore. Scored from 74% to 100% (a creative writing MFA applicant should gain at least 80% for verbal GRE, I assume). Got totally bored and quit. Life is perfect. Perfectly boring. But perfect, nevertheless. I hold nothing of sorrow.

And a perplexing Indonesian colloquialism quiz for you bloody foreigners. To enter, you must NOT be an Indonesian and must NOT know any Indonesian word. Consult the Internet or any other information source and you're a worthless cheater for the rest of your worthless life. Understood?

Try using logic or intuition to guess the meaning of each word.

1. Kepongpong:

Newborn kitten.

Cat's carcass.

Scorpion.

Cocoon.

2. Kecebong:

Tadpole.

Toad.

Tofu.

Soybean.

3. Cangcorang:

Cockroach.

Kitten.

Butterfly.

Mantis.

The winner gets either one: a poem, a story, a love letter, a virtual kiss, or a movie date if you're in Jakarta.

Don't forget to include your email address when you answer. May the luckiest triumph. Kisses.

Sunday, March 25, 2012, 6:04 – 6:38 AM

Bitchery

And when I woke, I was a mermaid. With copper brown locks glowingly dark under the blinding afternoon rays. I stared at my hair in the mirror. Artistic mess so alluring you wouldn't want to look away. Unfortunately, this is only visible when the sun is shining with enough heat to melt a town. Perhaps, I should dye all my hair dim orange?

Now, on to that passive-aggressive contumely.

I've just retracted a recent experience to illustrate my previous point of how people keep telling me alibis about not being able to respond timely. There was a man from Okcupid emailing me twice, saying I had to reply him. His profile had no photos. I disapprove of such conduct on a dating site. It looks shady and dishonest. If a person won't bother to display a recent clear face, how am I to trust him? Seems very criminal to me. But he was persistent, and I finally sent him very few lines in return (instead of blocking the jerk as I normally do).

This was also a time where I wished to deactivate my Okcupid profile, so I instructed him to reply to my personal email account. He did. And then I wrote him another message. He went missing. No news in months. His last answer went to my Spam folder. I wasn't even aware if it was from him. He carelessly mentioned he was busy with work for months. No other explanation, no additional details. Only that. I noticed his tone was not as interested as the first mails on Okcupid.

Unless he fell into a coma for months, where he was unable to open his eyes or do anything else, then I'd say he was lying. If you don't respond to someone for six months, it's obvious that you don't need to talk to her anymore. My guess is he was involved with another woman who sounded more promising than I was, and focused on her. This is the only cogent reason. Work won't be more engrossing than a woman. Not a chance.

Worse became worst, he mentioned the filthiest cliche that I detest with all my heart: It doesn't matter how long I don't talk to him; I will always be his friend. Right. I'm a Scorpio, not a Carebear. My friendship is not forever. When you forget me for months, my heart closes. No more room for your memory. The attachment expires. You're looking for an eternal friendship? Befriend a vampire.

Bastard number two was as preposterous as number one. This was a story to end an IM chat. He said his battery was running low. Therefore, he had to end the conversation. Evidently, in his parallel Universe, people use laptops without any adaptor ready. When the battery is empty, they have no way of continuing the work with their computers. Everything must shut down that very instant. No more IM exchanges.

How gullible did he think I was? As obtuse as a five year old that wouldn't understand the function of a laptop charger? Plug it and you have enough electricity to last till the end of time.

Hearing that was more offensive than saying he was sick of talking to me. He could simply say he had some things to do and needed to close the chat. Or that I bored him to death. That would be much more appreciative of my intellect.

Men and their stupidity. When will they ever learn?

Seriously, boys, when you lie to a woman, make it credible. I pray one day, you will meet the one who is precious enough that you will respect her and never lie to her the way you did to me. In the meantime, be a man and tell the truth. Excuses make you uglier than a gargoyle.

Saturday, March 24, 2012, 11:34 PM –

Sunday, March 25, 2012, 1:01 AM

Bitchery is from Sylvia Plath's poem "Winter Trees".

Gargoyle

Cucumber Bunnies

Attention, world. The female humanoid scorpion is now on her period. No more PMS madness. That is if everything stays as calm as it is now and nothing poses any peril to her.

Redness came five hours too late, but still on the scheduled day. It wasn't as blundering as when my menstruation was five days behind and I suspected I had baby Jesus in my womb. Though I would love to be pregnant without the help of any sperm donor. Having a child should be delightful. Kissing her a hundred times a day...

Drowsy spells have left. Splendid. I'm not that exhausted anymore. More alert. Back pain and tummy cramps are almost absent. Breasts have completely normalized. I'm still a bit dizzy. Coughing, at worst. Unsure what causes the itchy throat. Maybe from accidentally swallowing cat hair since the two kittens make a weird habit of rubbing their faces on mine (they must think I'm their mother), or... my stupid sister's drinking directly from my water bottles when she had the flu. Gross. Viruses and germs are everywhere! I hate getting sick. Makes me feel unhygienic.

Sleep still asked me to be hers for eight hours this morning. So many plump furry bunnies in my dream. What were they doing there? I can't distinguish the surrounding. An orange-brownish mansion with a blue pool and a vast yard with trees and those bunnies eating their cucumbers. The place might belong to the foreigners I met outside the house. They looked like the actors from American nineties' sitcoms. Plain and familiar with baggy jeans and big hair.

Plotless dreams disconcert me. I have the need to understand events chronologically to memorize them better. First, I was near the building, with its thick orangey walls, and those outdated-looking people. A man, a woman, a boy, and a girl. We were conversing about something. I saw the dazzling tranquilizing pool nearby.

And all of a sudden, I was getting out of the dense garden. It was so green with trees. Unbolting the silvery gate, feeling I had to leave immediately. The silly bunnies were following me. Adults and their offspring. They seemed larger than any rabbit I've seen in reality. White, gray, with yellowish splotches. There was something about them I can't remember.

A mystery was about to unfold and I woke.

They look something like this angora rabbit,
but somewhat wider.

Saturday, March 24, 2012, 7:44 – 9:57 PM

Angora rabbit

Excuses

Busy is the word I loathe most. So overused and distorted. When people told me they were busy for a week or a month because of work or school or what-bloody-ever, my mind robotically formed that magic word LIAR.

Yes, it is very probable that a human must perform tasks for a prolonged amount of time. And such length will be proportioned enough not to make her sick, or dead. Which means, it can never be more than twenty-four hours. It's common for people to skip a night of sleep. But more than that? Hard to believe.

Inferring from such knowledge, I am certain of one thing: No person will ever be occupied continuously for more than twenty-four hours. Doing a straining activity that requires high level of concentration for an entire day is biologically unattainable. You're neither a machine nor a god. And so, like every other human, you will need to balance work and study with sufficient rest and diversions. In other words, spare time.

Saying you've been busy in the past week (or month) and therefore cannot talk to me at all? That's merely a patent euphemism for avoiding me. Do you naively think I'm that slow? I recognize excuses when I hear one. I'm a professional teacher, remember? Six years of teaching, dealing with too many unimaginative pretexts, I have come to expect people to invent something funnier than the feeble "busy".

Here's what you can do: Be assertive. Be honest and stop attempting infantile justification that cannot be rationalized in any circumstance. Or, enhance the power of your left brain for plausible logic, plus the innovation of your right brain, and devise a better lie.

Cause when you lie to a lunatic Scorpio, you will either face a death penalty or a lifetime of denouncement. I'd choose death if I were you.

Saturday, March 24, 2012, 3:44 – 4:53 AM

Universal Code of Ignorance

Untalented creatures,

like I, stray amongst the lofty

We vitrify ourselves,

spinning for stupefied morrow

Infamous ghosts mincing our ego

How heinous their tyranny

Dehydrating is the greatness

of their legendary when

all we do is sigh: stuffing

our mouths with decadency

Trampled, black with envy

Their glory demagnetized

Our forged pages a platitude

filming second-rate magnitude

We mask ourselves defeated

Professing standards so low

they are color-blind

We thought we spoke of stars

Our hands nimbly fishing

as our minds swim the smoky

sea beyond the tallest chimneys

And in the end —

everyone bares her soul

None of us escapes the lot

of our anticlimactic charm

whisking such trashy travesty

Friday, March 23, 2012, 3:07 AM –

Saturday, March 24, 2012, 3:34 AM

Under a Spell

Were I a man, but only for the days I wake with super-swollen breasts, back pain, and tummy cramps. I foresee dizzy spells arriving untimely. Twenty hours before my period and Hell has taken over my body. Curses.

Men are blessed for their freedom from menstrual bruises. For years. Life is so unfair for women. I have been disturbingly drowsy in the past week, always falling asleep while typing something. And even when I coerce my mind to stay alert, it's not as successful as I thought it would be. I'm floating with this queasy hallucination. Somebody, turn me into a stone. Medusa!

HGGHHH... I JUST FELL ASLEEP. WHILE THINKING WHAT TO TYPE NEXT!!! DAMN PMS. WHAT THE DEVIL IS GOING ON!

I feel so very particularly old this week. Like I'm about to die soon. Soon enough before my next birthday. Estrogen inflicts too much drama. Lucky I haven't killed anyone by now. Writing is not joyous anymore. Especially not today when I can't find any peculiarity to disclose. I feel NOTHING. Brain-dead.

The hours I wasted for slumber this morning were crazy. First round, five to eight in the morning. Woke a moment. Then went back dozing from nine AM to three PM. Nine hours in total. Not that inhumanly horrid. Still too long for me. Sleeping more than six hours a day is unproductive. I'd rather write. Writing is all rubbish. Like this stupid post that evokes no meaning. Nothing at all. I wouldn't even want to publish this. But what else can I brew? I wish I were Sylvia. Envy her so sickeningly much.

Morning dream was vague, something about waiting for a bus outside my campus building. The next tale was working in my father's office after I recently graduated from college. It was more about eyeing delicious cakes and pastries. Seriously. I dreamt about FOOD. Was I hungry? What uninteresting dream. As jejune as my life.

I'm about to be suicidal.

Friday, March 23, 2012, 6:56 – 9:58 PM

Sleeping Beauty

Viral Idiocy

Yes, I am referring to Facebook.

What is so good about it? NOTHING. You "befriend" your friends on the Internet and exchange some cyber-pleasantry. And then what? Post bombastic photos or other creations you make; flaunt them; expect people to comment on them. Update your super-trivial status: what you are doing, how you are feeling, what you are eating, funny quotes, and a million of complaints. Share links of the articles you read, music you listen to. Do you really think people care about anything like this? Absolutely not.

How do I know? Because when you are off Facebook, do you get people asking about how you are doing and what you are thinking? NO. They don't care. And that's the ugly truth.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other Internet social media are only a way to show the global society that you exist somewhere. Nothing mandatory, or essential. Without them, life still revolves around the things that actually matter: people, communication, social interactions, genuine spontaneous emotions unlike the ones you can craft beautifully on the Internet.

And what irks me so is the fact that most sites require a new user to register with her Facebook account. What the Hell? Not everyone is on Facebook, you know. I'm not. And I won't ever coming back there. It's fake, pretentious, dishonest, meaningless, and unnecessary. Not to mention it has serious security issues with hackers. It's unfair and perfectly troublesome to ask a person to create a Facebook profile just so she can have access to other sites. Very irrational.

Those who sincerely care about me still contact me through emails and IM chats, with engaging conversations, not just generic one-line artificiality like "hey, how's it going". Complete junk. I will continue to write people original emails with coherent paragraphs and emotive explanations. That's cause I care. And when you care, you will do the same to me.

Not Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever shortened, compacted version of unsympathetic expression popular to Internet slobs. I want a personalized connection exclusive between you and me. Renounce Facebook and go back to emails. Stop the viral idiocy.

Friday, March 23, 2012, 3:05 – 4:43 PM
Pretend