DIY Kuala Lumpur

And so it was a weekend of firsts: my first ever sleeper train ride; my first night in a backpackers' hostel; my first holiday planned and executed all by myself. Perhaps a little stranger was that it also was my first time in Kuala Lumpur proper. Before I left, I kept telling people I hadn't been there in ten years, which was my way of saving myself the trouble of dealing with "you mean you haven't?" questions.

It was the perfect escape--close to home, cheap, not particularly exotic but still different enough to warrant experiencing. The real reason I was there, though, was to catch Muse in concert, having missed them when they played at Fort Canning in January--but well, why not have a little merger with my country's erstwhile hinterland while at it?

My two days there were a haze of gargantuan malls (Berjaya Times Square: ten flippin' storeys!); a maze of light rail, monorail and intercity trains; a grid of scorching sidewalks, and a blur of tourist traps which I was more than happy to embrace in the name of hanging loose and letting go. I experienced the claustrophobia of a room with two beds, a table, a dim bulb and no windows. I had my best, cheapest foot massage ever (60 minutes for RM35, that's less that SGD15.50 folks!). I ate some really oily food. I collected my concert ticket from a nice, sincere, complete stranger I met online. I went on some thrill rides at an indoor (yes, indoor) amusement park alone, but stopped short of the testicle-shrinking, haemorrhoid-curing roller coaster which curled too close to fellow shoppers for comfort.

And when the hour arrived, I moshed with the craziest of Malaysians, elbowing my way from the RM113 section to the RM233 section of the stadium, screaming every word of every song I knew, having a litre of sweat squashed out of me, fending off slamdancers and the flailing limbs of bodysurfers until I reached the front of the stage where people were screaming "Air! Air!" (which, interestingly, is pronounced as 'eye-er' and means "water" in Bahasa Melayu).

Two hours later, with only a change of t-shirt, cruising at over 80 km/h down the dark North-South highway in a coach set up like an commercial plane (in-drive entertainment, supper), I could only lean back with a small sense of triumph. Some people can't understand why I'd travel anywhere alone; with such quick and cheap thrills to be had, why not?

Gone Xi Fa Cai

I remember reunion dinners at Woodleigh Park: all noise, redness and grease. I remember scampering through imaginary adventures in that stale colonial house, eagerly awaiting the countdown; the showers of sparks on the dark grass, the creak of the swing, the sleepy agitation in the ride home.

I remember the greedy ang pow tallies, calculating what toys I could buy; I remember pilfered chocolates in my pockets, endless car rides to somewhere and nowhere, word games with my brother, pointing and laughing at silly things from the comfort of a rear window. I remember enough faces and places to fill two, three whole days on end.

Those days are long gone--not only with the passing of extended family members, but also with my childhood, the old family car, and my parents' energy (they are coming to 70). Over the years, we've scaled back on everything. This year, for the first time, we missed the countdown. The next day, we house-hopped out of sync with the extended family, missing all of them until we reached our final stop, where I was saved from an excrutiating night of staring, nodding and smiling by a Star Movies telecast of Fantastic Four.

Today, my father was slumped in his lazy chair outside my room for hours, age digging heavily into his bones. Not having to go to the office, I scrambled together a been-meaning-to-do agenda: re-read parts of my business school admissions essay books, try my hand at drafting outlines, make personal travel arrangements, do some of my freelance work. It was refreshingly productive. In the evening, I headed with my parents for the last visit of the year like an afterthought.

And as I stood there on the pavement, waiting to cross, it suddenly occured to me how sad and funny it had all become--now, what makes my Chinese New Year feel like a holiday is not the visiting, but the lack of it.

It's Good to Be Home

It's been too damn long.

And what else is there to do when her boyfriend's just flown into town, but to jump on to the dancefloor feeling "But she's touching his chest now / He takes off her dress now / Let me go / And I just can't look / It's killing me" pulse with new meaning?

Suddenly, everything is fresh again: the deep booms and high shards of sound from the speakers; the rush from the opening bars of a favourite song; the lunging against walls when the feeling is too much to take. The charming naivete of teenage boys in blazers, and the delicious proximity of young girls who seem to know too much.

The madness of everyone appearing to know the lyrics of every song, and the joy in remembering many of them myself, even if I haven't heard them in a year.

And this time--the four of us--we did it with no trips to the toilet, no beer runs, no retiring to the sofas...just dancing to the point of exhaustion, dancing away our working-world frustrations, our white-collar stupidity, our small and embarrassing existences, just the way it was meant to be.

Reality Cheque

Like all wide-eyed inductees into the world of salaries, bonuses and credit, I've been spending my money as if I printed it. The feeling of receiving a few thousand dollars a month is overwhelming at first, but thereafter it's a joyride. Suddenly you can afford the things you couldn't as the proverbial poor student; suddenly a lot of things don't matter anymore. There's always money, and even if it's spent, it can be earned back.

I've diligently kept records of my expenditure for the past 12 months, always intending to look at them at some point, but never putting aside time to.

So with my financial adviser pestering me for a decision on her company's latest insurance product, I finally whipped out the figures this afternoon and did the sums for three randomly selected months.

In October 2006, after deducting the fixed stuff: my CPF contribution, my contribution to household expenses and utilities bills, my mobile phone bill, my parents' allowance, my university study loan--and the random stuff: food, transport, clothing, grooming (haircuts and massages), entertainment, impulse buys, wedding ang pows, ad hoc treats for family and friends...I saved the princely sum of $117.69.

Wow. I think I need more than just insurance. I need something that can save me from myself!

Dinner and Drinks

A lovely night out: noodles at Maxwell Food Centre; experiencing the buzz of Lunar New Year-season Chinatown by osmosis. Telling stories and tossing ideas about casually before wandering into a chic little enclave; savouring its plush seating area and nice lighting. Being pleasantly surprised by who else turns up.

The key, quite simply, is not to try too hard. And when it succeeds, don't milk it too much. For the first time in months, we met up without a 'concept' in mind. Like magic, it worked much better than anything we'd tried recently.

Winning

Sometimes, you have to know when to walk away. I tried to several times last year, but I lost the plot, missed my opportunities and sank into a quagmire of doubt and desire. Fortunately, having been away from her for a few weeks, I’ve gained a fresh perspective and am now kicking myself for letting it last as long as it did.

I clung on for months, hoping that she’d come back; wanting to know how she felt about the whole affair, how she could’ve gone from being so passionate to being so cold, whether she really erased the memories from her mind or was just suppressing them, at which point she turned, and why.

Part of me still wants to know. But what would that achieve? Maybe I don’t really want to know; maybe I just want to hear a “I still think you’re rather cute; I feel a little embarrassed that I allowed you to have so much of me, but it was nice while it lasted; let’s move on and keep this as a nice memory yah?”.

Much as my male ego wants to know I had her physically and still have part of her emotionally, it wants even more to avoid being thrown into submission by learning that I, in fact, don’t.

So when she—in a surprising turn of events—tried to broach the subject today, claiming she was “finally ready to talk about it” (maybe those weeks apart did something for her too), I felt the best thing was to brush it aside.

That, really, is the only door out of this which I can walk through with my head held high.