If variety is the spice of life, then routine must be the roux that binds all flavours together.

 

Cat.

So I recently got a cat (or more like… the cat got me), and her name is Salad. Well, I named her Salad. If things go smoothly, I’d also like to get her a stepbrother, and name him Caesar (hah!). Sorry.

(I will delve into how we became acquainted in another post maybe).

So yesterday’s semi-tiring visit to the vet revealed her to be around 3–4 years old, which is a young adult in cat years (they live up to 12–20 over years, depending on how healthy they are). And Salad is an absolute lovely, docile ball of short fur. She’s got a bit of an enigmatic history – her right ear is twisted downwards, her right eye has a medium-sized square-like scar, and she has a limp in her right hind leg. My mum dubs her a gangster cat – I suspect she might have just fallen from height, or got into some accident that left her all those er, afflictions.

We’ve known each other for slightly over a month now, and she’s taken an immense liking to me (based on my standards anyway). She follows me wherever I go, and if I’m sitting, she’ll sidle up and get really mushy with her face; i.e. she’s asking for a rub. It’s really sweet.

The past few weeks have also seen my time revolve around her (aside from work). I can’t count the number of times I’ve visited the pet store, or the amount of time I’ve Googled “how to raise a cat” and “cat hacks”. I’ve also done a major overhaul of the house – I cleared out my spare guest room so she’d be able to stay there should I need her confined (if and when I have guests who’re not comfortable with cats, or when I’m doing a full spring clean of the house – which is almost every weekend).

She used to be a little clingy during the first few days of us getting to know each other, but I’m guessing she’s had a rough couple of days/weeks prior, so, she might’ve been craving any form of affection and/or security – even if they come in tall forms of hairless beings, who does extremely weird things, like staring at a rectangular block for hours on end, or talk gibberish.

On the flip side, Salad’s got a couple of quirks as well. She isn’t motivated by food or treats apparently. She eats them, don’t get me wrong, but she doesn’t get excited by them (and in my defense, I feed her some pretty good stuff.) She does however love the wet stuff I feed her every now and then. But then again, that’s some really atas cat food, so maybe she’s just got some really refined tastes. And before anyone rebukes me, I know cats like sticking to one type of food, so if I’m not feeding her food she used to eat (if she had an owner), or the wild, raw stuff she’s used to hunting for, she probably isn’t too thrilled about the stuff I’m giving her. But, she’s eating! She’s pooping! She’s… not starving! I can only do so much, people.

I’m also getting used to having fur all over my clothes now. Constantly reminded of how etched she is in in the fabric of my life. (I’ll work on that.)

Do you want to know the absolute kicker though? I’m allergic to cats. Though, I’m making it work! As I’ve told my concerned friends and family, I’ve made the master bedroom and bathroom a no-cat zone, so while Salad gets a little forlorn whenever I retreat into my room, it helps my allergy episodes. They don’t happen too often nowadays, and they were never terrible to begin with. Similar to symptoms of flu, just in very short bursts. A shower or a cold, damp towel on the eyes help tremendously.

I’d say more, but I think I just really wanted to get this out somewhere, so maybe a subsequent post will follow suit.

We’ll see. Till then, remember, if you’re having a hard day, perhaps it’s time to put a pawse on life.

The Writing Challenge

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, and for me to tackle this on a Thursday night at 1.25am in the morning is mad but I’ll do it anyway because otherwise it’s just going to be tucked away and I’ll not do it for another 6 to 8 months.

So I googled “Writing Challenge”, and a bunch of things turned up, but this seems to fit my needs at the moment so let’s go with that. Also my goal is to write for 20 to 30 minutes, before I wrap up whatever I have and press ‘Publish’. Let’s go!

Today’s challenge is:

A character becomes happy during the story.

—

“Shit.” Peter muttered.

He had stepped in shit, and was bemoaning both the obvious, and the unfortunateness of the situation. Agitated, he tried to wipe as much of it on the concrete pavement, with little success.

He took a quick glance at his watch – late as hell. Not a great way to start the day.

Walking briskly towards his seven storied office building, he passed by the newspaper stand. Headlines yelled at him from every medium. “WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO 20 KIDS” “Get fit – and fast!” “N. KOREA MILITARISES DEMILITARISED ZONE. TOURISTS SET UP CAMPS TO WATCH”

He clicked his tongue – a usual habit for him – a magazine advertising an omelette-eating competition had caught his attention. But, he was late, and he’ll just have to revisit the stand during lunch to see more of it.

Making his way up to the second floor, he bumped into Stanley – a smart, bright young guy who had just joined a week ago.

“Stanley, hey! Didn’t see you there.” Peter waved, smiled and nodded altogether in an almost haphazard manner.

“Oh hey, Peter!” Stanley grinned back – his boyish bangs falling over his eyes.

“Yeah. By the way, I was wondering – how do you feel about lunch?” Peter figured that Stanley might like portobello burgers. He seemed like the kind.

“Sounds great actually. Also, I need to talk to you later about the zoning reports – Martha told me you’ll help me get those sorted out? Plus I need to get them to Roger by 3 – if you don’t mind at all.” Rapid-fire conversation was always a thing with Stanley.

“Yes, of course. I can see you in my office in half an hour. Need to… y’know, settle down and stuff.” Peter gestured to his weathered briefcase.

“No, yeah, of course. Half an hour it is. I’ll see you then!”

Peter watched Stanley bound away – he seemed like such a great guy. Peter wasn’t one to dabble in office romance, but there was something about the way Stanley’s tentacles moved, and the gleam from his half-human, half-droid eyes glisten that made Peter a little flushed.

Doing a little happy jig on his way to his room, Peter thought that maybe he should remove his aquarium from his office before Stanley came in.

And maybe the little octopi figurines his sister had gotten him from Janeopia.

Didn’t want Stanley to get the wrong impression, after all.

—

Phew. That was fun! Haven’t written a story like that in ages. I will probable regret this in the coming days/years. But we’ll see.

 

C’mon female anatomy.

Mood swings absolutely suck.

It’s like a mini storm before the larger, redder storm.

If you get my drift.

Arghhhh.

Nightcap #2

It’s two minutes to 1.30am, so I am going to try to write quickly and briefly – though knowing me, that might not be realistic goals. But we’ll see.

My mother and two siblings stayed over at my new place this weekend (I moved a few months back), and I won’t lie – it was great having them. I liked their company immensely, and eating my mother’s fried scrambled eggs was comforting, familiar and delicious.

I think that platitude – absence makes the heart fonder – does, to a certain extent, ring true.

My sister and I also visited Ikea today, and I’m happy to have ticked off a few things off my shopping list. Though, it was quite a grueling trip. I liked that we were (relatively) fast. We don’t dawdle, which is fantastic, and imperative to navigating through Ikea while keeping your sanity. That’s not to say we didn’t have fun – hanging out with my sister is always great.

It was harrowing in a sense that we saw peoples’ unpleasantries in truckloads. I don’t blame them, though. You have two massive floors – one floor dedicated to showrooms and displays and the other a market hall where things are unassembled, packed in boxes and labelled with sometimes only alphanumerics. Both levels are exceptionally maze-like so people walk a lot, and depending on what they’re looking for, get lost a lot too. While large as well, the food hall offers few comfortable seats to cater to the weekend crowd, and people loiter around waiting for a seat, all while being tired, hungry, and lugging at least one bag/child. And, when resources are low (i.e. time, energy, patience, and perhaps money after the checkout counter), people get snippy. So, I don’t blame them.

Aaand now it’s a minute to 1.50am! I think I’ll call it a night(cap).

I have work, and a very tight deadline tomorrow, so I think it’s wise to leave this as it is, even though more could be said. Till next time!

Flipping #1

GBH Design Ltd, for Puma.

#flippingthrumedia

Rando Observations #1

1. Sometimes listening to some people talk about certain things (unreciprocated affections, the inability to walk away from damaging things [without good reason], questioning things they already know the answers to) feels like a cavity is forming in my brain, and it stays there, long after the conversation is over, with the cavity eating at parts of my cerebral cortex. To clarify: there are times when I like listening to them. If only because I can be helpful in the matter at hand.
2. I sometimes deviate a lot when researching.
3. Working on deadlines and throwing proverbial idea doughs at the wall is both frustrating and puts me in deep anxiety.
4. Power and dependency. #unhelpfulthingstothinkaboutwhenworking

Nightcap #1

I’m in a very strange in-between at the moment. Actually, this happens quite often. It’s when things feel rather sub-par, even though, logically, I know I’m not doing too badly.

I don’t know, it still feels warped to me – this unidentifiable in-between. I suspect I know where it comes from. Bits of lingering dissatisfactions from small social mishaps.

And also, still trying to find my footing of sorts in a couple of affairs. This will pass, right? Right?

To be fair, I’m not always like this – said every other neurotic person. No, but seriously. I just get like this every now and then, and this time when it’s happened, I’ve somehow found the want to broadcast it on a platform that may or may not be used against me (for like, future employment and dateability purposes, of course).

I don’t know. That probably sums up a lot of how I’m feeling right now. I just don’t know. And, I don’t like not knowing. If that makes any sense. Large amounts of unbridled uncertainty derails me a bit sometimes. And I’m not talking about cosmic uncertainty, or the plausibility of life after death. I could spend hours going into that existential wormhole and that’d take me weeks to get out of. So I shift my attention to the stuff that I feel like I have a semblance of control in, at least. If you’re going to do the whole big-picture thing, then I’m really just talking about the smaller, and to a certain extent, trivial stuff.

It also doesn’t help that I’m sleepy, but refuse to sleep because I’m not feeling chirpy enough to will myself to sleep, and that I’ve been nursing a dripping nose and itchy eyes for the last two months since the haze blew in from the big I.

Not that I have a problem with the big I (aside from a couple of perennial stuff). I love their food and a couple of people I respect come from the big I.

I’m not helping myself in any way, it seems.

Anyway, back to not knowing. There are a lot of things I don’t know. I don’t know how to drive, how to milk a cow (properly), how I’d eventually contribute to society on a large scale, in a way that both selflessly allows me to give, while selfishly satisfying my self-purpose quota.

And then there are things that I do know. I know how to comfort a weeping sister, how to cook a fairly delicious meal, and why diamonds are expensive, and depending on who you talk to – valuable (the answer lays between coloured stones with certain chemical properties are rarer [and tightly-controlled by a trade market – your diamond mafia basically], and arguably, smart marketing).

The point is, as someone who depends on her intellect (ugh, buzzkill) for work purposes and to a larger extent – identity, I feel like there’s got to be a balance between knowing and not knowing. So therein lies comfort in not knowing the answers to the universe, while knowing that hey, at least I have my shit together in my universe. Does that make sense? And then when things spill a little out of balance in my universe that I don’t have the answers to (that I want answers to), the balance of not knowing and knowing is tipped, with the former weighing more heavily than the latter.

I don’t know if you got any of that, but in a nutshell, it sucks when I don’t know what I want to know. And this isn’t some entitled rant. I’m comfortable not knowing a lot of things that are either unreasonable for me to be expected to know (the intimate workings of a 3D printer), or are, frankly, none of my business (who you’re seeing [or not seeing anymore]).

Maybe I can attribute it to me not caring, but that’s for another er, ramble.

For now though, I’m actually pretty sleepy, and I have an early thing tomorrow, so I’m just gonna leave you with these (un)wise parting words: Chill. Don’t over think it, lah.

The Creative Process #1 (This may also be a series.)

I am … currently piecing together a concept for a project.

It is a painful (or what constitutes as painful in my line of work – most of the time it’s just highly uncomfortable), slow process – like glueing together lego pieces on a football field. It looks like something, and it looks like there’s going to be potential, but nothing coherent is forming yet.

So I’m taking a break, because I’ve been at it for the last … 12 hours.

To be fair, I had to come up with two concepts, so the first one was arduously (again, what I perceive to be arduous when it isn’t that difficult) pieced together in six hours, maybe. And I started on my second concept a couple of hours ago. Halfway through though, I re-looked at it, and figured that it didn’t quite gel with the client’s projection. So I changed course.

And that can be discomforting, because it means scraping quite a bit, and starting with a semi-empty canvas.

Gah!

So now I’m just slowly stringing it together, trying to fit the small, minute pieces to form a bigger picture.

It’s really isn’t all terrible, though. At least I have a direction. It sucks when there’s no direction, or more like when I can’t figure out a direction, and stick to it. So I spend hours going around in circles, throwing proverbial idea doughs at the wall to see what sticks.

Mostly the idea doughs bounce off the wall, misshapen and sad-looking.

The words are there for me to piece this concept together, I just need to select the right ones – the optimal ones that properly and specifically describe my idea.

It’s not that difficult. Just highly uncomfortable.

Discourteously, me.

So I have come to realise that my own impoliteness bothers me. Even in the smallest doses. But, only to certain people, and in certain situations. In short, I tend to worry about offending people without cause.

Which, after going around in circles thinking about my behavior – is a good thing. It means that I’ll constantly check myself. Or check myself more in the future. Paul Ford is right. Politeness buys you time, distance, and I quote, “you could drag yourself through a terrible situation and when it was all over, you could throw your white gloves in the dirty laundry hamper and move on with your life.”

Ah well, this is a lesson learnt. A brief moment of gratification from lashing out (no matter how minor) does not compensate the feeling of slight annoyance (at myself) and guilt that tags along afterwards.