Deepest Regrets
[26th September, Wednesday]
I'm typing this from my grandparents' place in So Hour; it's a great thing to have a laptop handy, even though my battery life insists on fluctuating between 3 hours and 6. In any case I'm quite stuffed full of food, in the usual tradition...
I went up to KL last Saturday with the Corn and the Emoticon for a shopping spree (for me) and a holiday (for the two of them). We chose to go by train, and Hair Twist opted to come along, so we ended up with four berths on opposite ends of the same cabin. In retrospect, I think the Corn rather regretted booking those berths so late, because we didn't get to spend the whole night listening to each other snore. (The Corn and Hair Twist took two berths opposite each other, and I slept opposite the Emoticon.)
Hair Twist separated from us to go to her own house at the end of the train ride.
We spent all Saturday and Sunday shopping, with occasional breaks for food and church (on Sunday morning), and I'm afraid I've come down with rather a bad case of buyer's regret--too late, too. Having spent nearly RM50 on a shirt, one simply doesn't expect it to tear after being worn only twice--which is what happened today. Just now, in fact. Perhaps I shouldn't have taken an M when I usually wear Ls, but the Corn insisted on me getting tight-ish shirts... in any case, the shirt was made of some sort of synthetic fabric, which adheres to wet surfaces (ie my back, when sweaty); so, when taking it off just now, I exerted a little more force than is usual to get it unstuck from my back--and lo and behold, a sharp ripping sound ensued. Inspection has revealed the rip to extend along more than half the length of shirt.
Maybe I'll get the Corn to sew it back up for me, but I'm not hopeful about the chances of that shirt ever being wearable again. It's a very expensive lesson in choice of fabric...
In any case, I've got three other new shirts (all cotton!) and two shorts more (also cotton) to wear, so the shopping spree wasn't a total loss. And I've got a haircut that the Corn says makes me look amazingly different from how I used to look. (Considering that happens with every single haircut I get, it's not surprising.) In any case I think Jogger would characterise my current wardrobe as "stylo-milo", but at least I'll kind of look better. Assuming, of course, that my muscle mass doubles before I outgrow the current wardrobe or something.
We slept in the Corn's house; her parents seem to be quite used to a bunch of total strangers showing up with their children and staying overnight, and in any case the Empress has stayed there before so the family's not exactly totally unfamiliar with mine. I slept with the Emoticon while there; they put a mattress on the floor beside the bed, and that's where the Emoticon slept. I was on the bed. I think something odd occurred during the night, because I recall waking up rather groggy with the Emoticon frantically pointing to my left.
So I rolled over to the left, and he kept pointing. That's when I found out I was on the floor... He said at breakfast that I had fallen on him and, rather embarrassingly, used him as a bolster or pillow or something. I insisted that I was as good as unconscious at the time, but he kept pleading with me to go find somebody of the opposite gender to hug. In any case it didn't occur the next night, since he put his mattress at a right angle to the bed to avoid it; but since he decided to start rolling about in his sleep, I woke up later to find him grabbing my arm rather tightly. (I didn't mention it at breakfast, though.) He said later that the room was surprisingly warm.
In any case I've spent more than RM200 on clothes in the past 3 days; my parents would go into conniptions if they ever got an inkling of it, but I don't count on them happening across this blog for awhile so I'm relatively safe. And anyway the Corn and the Emoticon say it's a pretty good bargain...
All this looks rather a confused narrative, doesn't it? But then I'm rather confused about some things myself at the moment. Like with all this fashionable stuff, for example. I've never actually thought of myself as possibly appearing more than... passable, I suppose. The idea that I might, somehow, be actually good-looking is... well, if you asked me two weeks ago, I would have said it was beyond any possible stretch of the imagination--and I should know. But now?
It simply doesn't seem possible that I should have any chance at all of looking anything like normal; in fact it almost demands a review of whatever I think about myself. Because, of course, the past 20 years have given me a definite idea that whatever I may try or do, one of the few things that never changes about me is... well, my unattractiveness, I suppose. It's a very negative self-perception, but it's oddly freeing in a way... because, when one accepts that one simply looks odd, one doesn't need to worry about making oneself look odder... Experiments with one's own appearance carry much less risk of deforming oneself. In fact I'd almost say that if the Corn and the Emoticon should succeed in making me look good--and convince me of the possibility of keeping myself that way, as well as convince me, somehow, that I always did look so except for my unfortunate choice of wardrobe and accessories--I'd probably change into a quite different person.
Whether or not that person would be comparably more desirable than my current self remains to be seen. I'm not at all sure that an extra dose of self-confidence would be a good thing for me.
...I've just realised my family--well, my extended paternal family at any rate--communicates its affection in a distinctly odd way. As I've mentioned before, we feed each other (or at least my grandparents feed me) to the brink of bursting, or at least causing severe gastrointestinal damage. It turns out we also scold each other a lot. And give unnecessary advice. And sometimes my cousins take it into their heads to give away spontaneous massages, pick at each other's hair--it's a lot less disgusting than it sounds!--and otherwise touch each other (again, much less disgusting than it may sound, and keep your mind pure here...). (In fact my uncle just asked if my chair had melted yet--I've been sitting at my laptop for the past two hours--and told me to go get a drink of water if I felt thirsty.) Yet at the same time it'd be terribly awkward for any of us to go jump into somebody else's lap and scream I Love You's at the somebody else.
(That last action appears to be what the Emoticon does when he visits home. Extremely worrying since he weighs quite a bit, and it says something about the good condition of his parents' bodies.)
I think I may have inherited some of those characteristics... I'll have to ask around and see if anybody else thinks so too.
[29th September, Saturday]
I got back to my room today afternoon. I would have gotten back yesterday, actually, except my grandmother gets lonely ever since my uncle died; he used to talk to her a lot in the mornings while everybody else was out at the orchards. (Don't get me wrong; this was after he was diagnosed with TB and had to stay home.) And they managed to get me to wait 'til the weekend--today--before taking the bus back.
To the apparently mild disappointment of the Corn and the Emoticon, however, I have returned with no fruit at all: the season was wrong and the orchards weren't producing anything along the line of edible stuff... My mom, however, somehow foresaw that my bag would be emptier than expected, and stuffed a couple pots and pans, plus cutlery, into my bag. Apparently she expects me to start cooking. (It's a rather direct hint, don't you think?)
In any case the trip wasn't too bad; I set out armed with advice from aunts, uncles, grandfolks, and the Gobbler about the buses to choose, which to avoid, and the average bus fare to avoid--including whether to pay in RM or SGD! (Apparently RM is cheaper.)
The Empress is in UK now; Hertfordshire, to be exact. (I haven't looked it up on Google Maps or Earth yet, though.) From her emails, it seems to be a pretty nice place so far apart from all the smoking girls and careless drivers and strange people who wear nothing but t-shirts in freezing weather. I just hope she keeps doing well...
I really ought to buckle down and get back to study... there's a math quiz in two weeks that I'm two months behind in preparations for: my parents would have a tizzy if they knew. In any case Marsh is already stressing me out about it, what with all his questions and reminders...
I'm typing this from my grandparents' place in So Hour; it's a great thing to have a laptop handy, even though my battery life insists on fluctuating between 3 hours and 6. In any case I'm quite stuffed full of food, in the usual tradition...
I went up to KL last Saturday with the Corn and the Emoticon for a shopping spree (for me) and a holiday (for the two of them). We chose to go by train, and Hair Twist opted to come along, so we ended up with four berths on opposite ends of the same cabin. In retrospect, I think the Corn rather regretted booking those berths so late, because we didn't get to spend the whole night listening to each other snore. (The Corn and Hair Twist took two berths opposite each other, and I slept opposite the Emoticon.)
Hair Twist separated from us to go to her own house at the end of the train ride.
We spent all Saturday and Sunday shopping, with occasional breaks for food and church (on Sunday morning), and I'm afraid I've come down with rather a bad case of buyer's regret--too late, too. Having spent nearly RM50 on a shirt, one simply doesn't expect it to tear after being worn only twice--which is what happened today. Just now, in fact. Perhaps I shouldn't have taken an M when I usually wear Ls, but the Corn insisted on me getting tight-ish shirts... in any case, the shirt was made of some sort of synthetic fabric, which adheres to wet surfaces (ie my back, when sweaty); so, when taking it off just now, I exerted a little more force than is usual to get it unstuck from my back--and lo and behold, a sharp ripping sound ensued. Inspection has revealed the rip to extend along more than half the length of shirt.
Maybe I'll get the Corn to sew it back up for me, but I'm not hopeful about the chances of that shirt ever being wearable again. It's a very expensive lesson in choice of fabric...
In any case, I've got three other new shirts (all cotton!) and two shorts more (also cotton) to wear, so the shopping spree wasn't a total loss. And I've got a haircut that the Corn says makes me look amazingly different from how I used to look. (Considering that happens with every single haircut I get, it's not surprising.) In any case I think Jogger would characterise my current wardrobe as "stylo-milo", but at least I'll kind of look better. Assuming, of course, that my muscle mass doubles before I outgrow the current wardrobe or something.
We slept in the Corn's house; her parents seem to be quite used to a bunch of total strangers showing up with their children and staying overnight, and in any case the Empress has stayed there before so the family's not exactly totally unfamiliar with mine. I slept with the Emoticon while there; they put a mattress on the floor beside the bed, and that's where the Emoticon slept. I was on the bed. I think something odd occurred during the night, because I recall waking up rather groggy with the Emoticon frantically pointing to my left.
So I rolled over to the left, and he kept pointing. That's when I found out I was on the floor... He said at breakfast that I had fallen on him and, rather embarrassingly, used him as a bolster or pillow or something. I insisted that I was as good as unconscious at the time, but he kept pleading with me to go find somebody of the opposite gender to hug. In any case it didn't occur the next night, since he put his mattress at a right angle to the bed to avoid it; but since he decided to start rolling about in his sleep, I woke up later to find him grabbing my arm rather tightly. (I didn't mention it at breakfast, though.) He said later that the room was surprisingly warm.
In any case I've spent more than RM200 on clothes in the past 3 days; my parents would go into conniptions if they ever got an inkling of it, but I don't count on them happening across this blog for awhile so I'm relatively safe. And anyway the Corn and the Emoticon say it's a pretty good bargain...
All this looks rather a confused narrative, doesn't it? But then I'm rather confused about some things myself at the moment. Like with all this fashionable stuff, for example. I've never actually thought of myself as possibly appearing more than... passable, I suppose. The idea that I might, somehow, be actually good-looking is... well, if you asked me two weeks ago, I would have said it was beyond any possible stretch of the imagination--and I should know. But now?
It simply doesn't seem possible that I should have any chance at all of looking anything like normal; in fact it almost demands a review of whatever I think about myself. Because, of course, the past 20 years have given me a definite idea that whatever I may try or do, one of the few things that never changes about me is... well, my unattractiveness, I suppose. It's a very negative self-perception, but it's oddly freeing in a way... because, when one accepts that one simply looks odd, one doesn't need to worry about making oneself look odder... Experiments with one's own appearance carry much less risk of deforming oneself. In fact I'd almost say that if the Corn and the Emoticon should succeed in making me look good--and convince me of the possibility of keeping myself that way, as well as convince me, somehow, that I always did look so except for my unfortunate choice of wardrobe and accessories--I'd probably change into a quite different person.
Whether or not that person would be comparably more desirable than my current self remains to be seen. I'm not at all sure that an extra dose of self-confidence would be a good thing for me.
...I've just realised my family--well, my extended paternal family at any rate--communicates its affection in a distinctly odd way. As I've mentioned before, we feed each other (or at least my grandparents feed me) to the brink of bursting, or at least causing severe gastrointestinal damage. It turns out we also scold each other a lot. And give unnecessary advice. And sometimes my cousins take it into their heads to give away spontaneous massages, pick at each other's hair--it's a lot less disgusting than it sounds!--and otherwise touch each other (again, much less disgusting than it may sound, and keep your mind pure here...). (In fact my uncle just asked if my chair had melted yet--I've been sitting at my laptop for the past two hours--and told me to go get a drink of water if I felt thirsty.) Yet at the same time it'd be terribly awkward for any of us to go jump into somebody else's lap and scream I Love You's at the somebody else.
(That last action appears to be what the Emoticon does when he visits home. Extremely worrying since he weighs quite a bit, and it says something about the good condition of his parents' bodies.)
I think I may have inherited some of those characteristics... I'll have to ask around and see if anybody else thinks so too.
[29th September, Saturday]
I got back to my room today afternoon. I would have gotten back yesterday, actually, except my grandmother gets lonely ever since my uncle died; he used to talk to her a lot in the mornings while everybody else was out at the orchards. (Don't get me wrong; this was after he was diagnosed with TB and had to stay home.) And they managed to get me to wait 'til the weekend--today--before taking the bus back.
To the apparently mild disappointment of the Corn and the Emoticon, however, I have returned with no fruit at all: the season was wrong and the orchards weren't producing anything along the line of edible stuff... My mom, however, somehow foresaw that my bag would be emptier than expected, and stuffed a couple pots and pans, plus cutlery, into my bag. Apparently she expects me to start cooking. (It's a rather direct hint, don't you think?)
In any case the trip wasn't too bad; I set out armed with advice from aunts, uncles, grandfolks, and the Gobbler about the buses to choose, which to avoid, and the average bus fare to avoid--including whether to pay in RM or SGD! (Apparently RM is cheaper.)
The Empress is in UK now; Hertfordshire, to be exact. (I haven't looked it up on Google Maps or Earth yet, though.) From her emails, it seems to be a pretty nice place so far apart from all the smoking girls and careless drivers and strange people who wear nothing but t-shirts in freezing weather. I just hope she keeps doing well...
I really ought to buckle down and get back to study... there's a math quiz in two weeks that I'm two months behind in preparations for: my parents would have a tizzy if they knew. In any case Marsh is already stressing me out about it, what with all his questions and reminders...
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