Saturday, February 25, 2006

No Worse Than Pandas

I sit down and order a teh tarik, which for non-Malaysians, and for most senses and purposes, could really be just tea zipped up in a blender. I light up a cigarette and stop caring about starting a second sentence with one of the three loner members of the alphabet. It's Steinbeck today, which hopefully will do better than the last half-dozen or so literary selections that did not make it to the last page. It does well, perhaps because it predictably panders to my affinity to scenes of nature in a climate that has slightly different seasons than hot-hotter-hottest and wet.

It's a sign of getting older, getting books that fit your gears instead of stuff which jumps out at you - and don't jump to conclusions, it's not a bad thing. It's just life, when you're a kid you get books about pandas, later you get books that wander, and now you get books that pander. It's a cute little cycle, it is. Again, it's not a bad thing - well, at least no worse than books about pandas, which are likely written coz it saves costs on color printing.

Another sign of getting older, but not yet old: cynicism, but for humor. Even with pandas.

I sip the tea. No, it's teh tarik, "tea" gives too much of an impression of post-colonial India, having coffee with Karan with Darjeeling tea in Mumbai, which is a little different somehow than having Earl Grey in Bombay. There's a reason why it's somehow better in a coffee shop, and I rather like this one. Mostly because they have mercifully left the TVs off, which in Indian/Malay coffee shops are almost always tuned in to that farce called WWF/TNA wrestling. I'm not racist - in Chinese shops they are inevitably tuned in to a different farce called the soap opera, which at least is a little less fake. Except for the final cadences (boom-boom-da-doom!) when someone goes into a coma/gets banged down by a car/gets pregnant by the ex-boyfriend's best friend who discovers at the same time that he's gay as well as switched at birth.


Thinking again, it's good teh simply because when you're at a coffee house, you take the time just to drink it. You know, instead of doing half a dozen plus one other things, or worse, having a cuppa just to perk you up in doing those half a dozen plus one other things. Or it could be because they have condensed milk. Maybe. It's good tea.

I take a drag and finish off my fag. You're mature when you realize that it's no sign of character whether one takes a friggin' smoke or not. You're even more mature to realize that while it's no reflection of integrity, it's still a rather stupid thing to do. You're in trouble if you just don't give a damn.

Got the materials from the university in the States - full scholarship isn't quite that full after all, though to be fair, it is still a good amount. Unfortunately with the currencies the way they are it's still cheaper to study in Australia without a scholarship. Time to negotiate. Got a very interesting two weeks ahead of me.

At this point a lot of people are going, ah, this is why this kangaroo dude is going all the dark with his blog posting-lah. Not the quite, buddy. Truth is, I've had an inkling this might happen, and in a way I'm glad to finally have a friggin' tangible problem that can be handled rather than worrying about what will come when-the-ever. Real life, finally. In all its colors. I've been meaning to get here for a while, and to blog about it. Not a great thing, but not a bad thing. At least, no worse than pandas.

It's not what you'd call a Barney sort of time, but it's nice to get on the playing board, out there in the court and finally dealing with handling the serves and whacking the balls.

And I betcha more than one person read than one person at least had a shadow of a perverted reading of that last sentence. If not, you will now.

Mind control, baby yeah. Speaking of mind control, thankfully since I've got the documents, my weird dreams have gone, and I'm getting better sleep. That is, for one who watched the skating gala till 4:30am and then woke up four hours later.

The only problem with dealing with real life this way is that you lose the fantasy part of it. You know, day-dreaming about meeting a famous personality. It's cheap, it's shallow, but it's somehow part of that whole thing about being human, allowing oneself to have these ridiculous notions. Did I just type "ridiculous notions"? Crap. How 60's. At least then they had Marilyn. You cross this line and suddenly when you're daydreaming there's a voice going, get real. One day I'll have my cake and eat it.

And for those of us who are beyond that, avoiding silly things like daydreaming and not missing it, being on a more sophisticated level, well, still look what happened three paragraphs ago. Oops, I did it again. Don't worry, it's not that bad.

Or at least no worse than pandas.

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