Solitary Confinement

Some days nothing fazes me. I can jump out of bed and think about phone calls like I think about sex. (Happily)

Some days, I want to kill everything in sight and think about men like the Palestinians think about the Israelies.

Some days I crave caffeine and the smell of smoke. I close my eyes and inhale some old Indian man's secondhand. It's almost rude, what I do. Like watching a couple climax from behind a bush in a popular National park.

Some days I look into his eyes and think I could never love anyone else so passionately. That if I died, I would hide in cubby holes, the very spirit of me mingling in the air he breathed, out through his pores, then back into his skin.

Some days, I hate him. I was to punch him in the face, and give him more fake teeth. Watch him bleed and then compare if indeed blood is thicker than water.

Some days I long to have amazing conversation punctuated with comfortably pregnant silences in which you know exactly what the other person is thinking and vice versa and even if it's clubbing baby seals, either one of you don't really care.

Some days I tire of knowing that conversations like those exist because I hardly get them anymore, and the worst feeling in the world is that of knowing about something, then facing the possibility of never ever having it again.

Some days I think I will write a masterpiece and then move to France, drink wine at noon time and wear long see through skirts and no underwear.

Some days I realise long see-through skirts and no underwear is not good because I'm not Gwyneth Paltrow and do not weigh as much as a small, fashionable dog.


Then some days, everything is silent, and no words form. I hate those days.

You Should Never Lose A Blog

When you fall down to pick up a pencil, and all the notes from your final semester fly away in the wind, dirtying themselves on the ground or falling into a grimy pond with no hope of you finding new copies easily, or even to cover the amount of time you have spent writing and re-writing things until you totally understand only those notes.

That's how it feels when you lose a blog. And I've not only lost one, but two. If you guys havent noticed, my first blog on blogspot, http://meesh.blogspot.com has been taken up by some patriotic American chicklet. Unfortunately, I have no one to blame but myself, I actually shifted http://www.meesh.net to the Blogger account through ftp and for some reason a whole bunch of weird shit happened.

1. My blog of 5 years this year is gone, and might never come back to me ever again.
2. All the older meesh archives are on meesh.net
3. The original meesh.net writings are gone, and I don't know where they have gone to. Someone actually used my review of Shantaram and I didn't even know.

I'm really sad today, I hadn't before realised the gravity of the situation, but now I do. And there's 5 years of emotions and thoughts and feelings and prose all gone. Well, not entirely, but for the most part scattered all over cyber space with no proper significance.

It upsets me further because half of those writings were very passionate and remind me of the different phases I had gone through in life. That's what writing for yourself is all about I guess. Today is not a good day, plus I had a fight with the Boy. Sad I am. No one knows how I feeeeeeeeel. :(

I'm Not Meant To Work

Really. I'm telling you. I was meant to be some columnist that works from home, where I can quietly drink coffee and lounge around in my pajamas while tapping away on my laptop (which is defunct for now).

I recently joined a debt collection agency, yes, we are legal, the scariest we get is by serving you an LOD, or letter of demand. None of those Ah Long type things, although sometimes I wish I was working for an Ah Long so I could beat the shit out of my difficult customers. And they are difficult mind you, those stingy bastards.

Now, the setting is a huge floor filled with people who either do out-sourced collection for banks and their credit cards, or like me, work to get people to pay their housing loans for a rather large corporation, which might I add if you ever had the misfortune to get a loan from, I pity you. I seriously do.

They are so disorgnised, use an ancient, archaic recording system and half the time are negligent of their duties as a financial entity. Which sucks, 'cos I have to deal with the irate customers.

And if you think debt collection is simple, think again. You get yelled at everyday, the phone never stops ringing and if it does you better get on it and start making calls. There is no technical aspect to it, just call them, ask them to make their payments, push them to send checks or even post dated checks so their files dont appear in your docket anymore, then update the payments and you'll get a commision after a certain base.

But these customers I tell you. They are so rude and crass, even though they are the ones who have voided on their payments and I'm so politely asking them when they will make a payment. BASTARDS.

Now, for some well observed streotypes, the Malays are awesome, they pay immediately when you tell them you know? I love them. The Chinese will just say tak tau to everything you ask, even if you're asking a mother for her daughter's phone number! and they always threaten some sort of physical pain. One uncle told me he would "hantam" me if I ever called him again. And the worst of the lot, the Indians.....

They are the bane of debt collectors I tell you, ask any debt collector! Just ask! They will fight and ho and hum, and lie and promise but will never pay. And they have the gift of the gab, so they argue and argue with you til kingdom come, and even sometimes make everything seem like your fault. One customer actually told me it was my fault her checks bounced because I didn't bank it in! Even though we did immediately.

Then there is always the same sad stories about how his wife is pregnant, or operations, accidents, someone died etc. All these are undestandable situations if it happened for 2 or 3 months even but the cases I handle are like Non- Performing Loans or 7-12 months of lapse, and some even have the audacity to tell me they're not furnishing their housing loans because there is something wrong with the plumbing and the marble flooring in their house!

Anyways. That's my job, it's interesting 'cos I'm learning a lot about how a business operates, financial jargon, rates of stuff, things I wouldn't normally know if I didn't join and to me any knowledge if knowledge right?

So yeah. Long live Ah Longs! ;P More to come hehe.