Cinnamon and sugar

So there we were. The two of us sitting at a table with a third of a pretzel left looking less and less appetising by the second. The pretzels that is. Not us. We, as usual, were looking quite appetising.

I wasn’t sitting with an imaginary friend for once. She was real this friend. We were at a real place. And we really weren’t talking.

We were at a stalemate. I had just told her something I had never told anyone before and she had just asked me a question to which I could not see myself giving a reply that she wanted to hear.

It wasn’t that it was an uncomfortable silence. At least to me it wasn’t. Although I don’t really believe in comfortable silences. And she was sort of waiting for an answer from me and I was sort of stalling with it. So maybe it was rather uncomfortable after all but…

– Oh my God! Did you see how hard that guy was clenching her arse?!

Or words to that effect.

I turned around but could only vaguely see the couple she was referring to. I supposed that the girl might have had such a skinny arse that he had no choice but to grab on as tight as he could.

– I’m holding on to dear life here!

On the table next to us sat a group of barely-pubescent boys in basketball singlets and assorted gold-plated chains and looking all hardcore and ghetto-like.

Gee, I said, just fill up the juvenile detention centres now and save everyone the hassle for later on.

– You are so un-PC.

We should put half the population in jails and just leave all the nice people so everyone can be nice and happy and be frolicking in the fields, chasing butterflies and petting fluffy bunnies.

– Well you’re not exactly nice.

Fine! Then I guess I’d be put in jail too and I won’t get to pet any bunnies.

– I think you’d get tired of petting bunnies pretty quickly anyway. Bunnies are so overrated.

I finished my pretzel and she packed what was left of hers. I drove her home then with the thoughts of bunnies and a tightly-clenched arse having lifted the generally somber cloud that had been hanging over us for most of the day.

And so we hugged the hug that said “everything is OK”. You know, the one you usually reserve for when everything isn’t OK. And she said thanks for lunch and see you later and I said thanks for the pretzel and see you later and she got out of the car and I drove off home. And I was thinking that I did just tell her something really important that I hadn’t told anyone before and not that it ever needed telling anyone really and I was wondering why I did tell her.

And then I remembered that all I said was thanks for the pretzel. When what I should have said was thanks for caring enough to ask.

__________


Wishlist

Wish No.2 I would like to see geneticists and horticulturalists work together to develop a fruit that tastes like chicken.

Another unhealthy obsession

Recently, I discovered the joys of Avril Lavigne. Even more recently, I discovered the joys of the haiku. Here are the fruits of my recent discoveries.

Oh dear sweet Avril
If only you could write more
Than your three good songs

Avril you are young
So talented… oh I wish
You were twenty-three

Avril I love you
But you are no more a punk
Than Punky Brewster

__________


Further haiku hijinks

TV on Monday
But what is the point really?
There is no Buffy

Lovely chicken breasts
Juicy wings and tenderloins
He’s good that colonel

Nineteen-ninety-nine
Such a good innocent time
Can I have you back?

From this day onwards
I only communicate
In the haiku form

Please ignore that one
Don’t know what I was thinking
A stupid idea!

__________


Wishlist

Wish No.1 I'd like to see a gay black rapper doing a hip hop cover of It's raining men with Eminem and Rupaul.

__________


Notice

The Word Project from the last posting is still on. Please refer to the side bar.

A pointless vocabulary exercise

In a joint project with Catherine, we are attempting to establish a list of the twenty best words in the history of the English language.

Why, might you ask? Beats the hell out of me! But let’s do it anyway.

Here are my initial six (all I can be bothered to think of at the moment). Please feel free to contribute your favourite words and say why you like them. And we will eventually make up a list of what we think are the top twenty.

– der (the all-purpose term of condescension)
– bollocks (if you use this word in Australia, it’ll make you sound like a git!)
– d’oh! (a deer, a female deer)
– git (this is what you call someone when they are talking a whole load of bollocks)
– dodecahedron (when someone tries to insult you and calls you a square, just say “no, I’m a dodecahedron” and watch them reel in open-mouthed defeat!)
– excrement (is there a classier, more elegant way to describe doo doo?)

Your input at this point would be appreciated.

I are a idiot

It has suddenly come to my attention that I know nothing. Well that’s not entirely true. I do know quite a lot of things in a wide variety of subjects. And I think I’m a pretty good judge of character, intentions, etc. in other people. Whatever.

I just don’t think I know anything when it comes to myself. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to live. I have no working knowledge on how to live an effective life.

I don’t do anything. I can’t think of a single instance where anything significant in my life has come about due to my own doing. Everything has been a series of little accidents, both good and bad, and I’m just bumbling around taking it all as it comes. I’m like Mr. Magoo.

I think one reason why it is so easy for me to believe in God and in fate is that I’ve never felt like I’m in any control when I’m interacting with the rest of the world. Everything that happens to me seems completely random and every effort I make turns to crap. Which is dumb really, because that’s not even the model of fate that I subscribe to.

I want the set of rules. I want the hint book, the walkthrough, the Cliff’s notes! Anything! I want to know how to play the game dammit!

__________

Shorts

Canberra really isn’t so bad. Everything looks a little artificial but it’s actually quite nice. Nice trees, nice lake, nice gardens. All very neat. Plus, we went to this club with cheap drinks, cheap entry, no smoking and S Club 7. That’s all I need to say really.

__________

My two current favourite CDs are Motor Ace’s Shoot this and Phantom Planet’s The Guest. Avril has a few good songs too, but um...er... I'll just leave it at that.

Preface, introduction, foreword, etc.

So here we are. One entry after Z. A new layout, a new name. But it's the same old crap really, only with new prettier window dressing. What will follow are pieces of random rants and creative writing. Some will be rather long, I admit. These will most probably be the creative writing side of the blog. Anyway, let's begin with a long one. Because I felt like it at the time.

Christian Harimanow
Sydney 2002

__________

Welcome to Wonderworld

You look like shite, says Sleepwalker. And I say, yeah. I do. The mirror shows me a portrait of the sleep-deprived. Eyes bloodshot. Bags under them carrying their own luggage. My imaginary friend, Sleepwalker, suggests that maybe I shouldn’t have stayed up so late last night. I say, duh.

– It’s a shame really. You usually look so much better.

I say, yeah whatever.

–You’re a good-looking guy. You look like Chow Yun Fat.

I say, stop it. Sleepwalker says, no really. I smile and say, well…

At the station, I am sitting on the edge of a wet seat after a night of rain. Sleepwalker stands against the pole smoking an imaginary cigarette. I tell him those things will kill you. He laughs. He tells me he likes the idea of non-existent tar building up in his non-existent lungs.

The bum next to me looks worse than I do. He lights up a real cigarette. And at the first real puff of real smoke, I begin to wheeze and cough violently. This reaction is real. The wheezing is real. I am coughing for real. But it is so over-the-top that it looks completely faked.

Tobacco smoke. Cold air. Dust. Must have created something rather nasty in my asthmatic lungs. The bum walks away, surprised by my involuntary convulsions. I almost feel a token need to explain. But I am enjoying the clean air too much to bother.

By 12:20 pm that day, I make my way from my 70’s time warp of an office down to the Metro food court for lunch. On the way there, I look at the same pile of books that I looked at the day before. Placed in the same order. On the same table. At the same discount bookseller. The same woman at the paying table is watching me that was watching me the day before. Sleepwalker says we should get that book. I say, it’ll probably still be there tomorrow.

– That’s what you said yesterday.

And we walk on.

The CD store offers little more relief to this maddening monotony. New stock only comes in once a week. In fact, the revolving door of staff seems to move faster than incoming stock. Every time, I am greeted by a new bubbly blonde with her midriff exposed, or some new guy with dreadlocks looking like the Tim Tam genie. But the CDs are always the same.

So I walk past, having developed an inexplicable desire for chocolate-covered biscuits. I know it’s time to eat.

– We’re not having KFC again are we? We had that yesterday.

No, I say. I was thinking of a kebab.

– We had that two days ago.

Indian?

– Monday.

I then suggest the Chinese smorgasbord. If my memory serves me correctly, we haven’t had that in weeks.

– But if your memory really did serve you correctly, you would also remember why we haven’t had that in weeks.

Oh.

Having fried chicken two days in a row isn’t so bad. You can have the burger one day and pieces of original recipe chicken the next. And you can conveniently forget to think about the fat content if you can. But it’s hard to. A couple of metres from me is the man who I shall call Luigi. He is here everyday. He is fat. He reminds me of fat. He probably eats fried chicken everyday. But if he does, he does so before I get here. By the time I get to the food court, Luigi is already having coffee and flirting with the unamused girls at Michele’s. And the cute girl at the newsagency has just begun her shift.

Luigi, I’m convinced, is either a gangster or he’s an actor who auditioned for The Sopranos and decided to keep the look even after he was rejected by the show’s producers. Of course, chances are, he’s probably just a fat bald Italian dude with a penchant for gold chains. The cute girl at the newsagency is probably just a cute girl who works at the newsagency.

I don’t know the time anymore. I used to go nowhere without my watch. And then when I lost my watch, I used to go by the time on my mobile. But now I don’t bother. I know how long I take to eat. I know how long I take to look at books, browse the CD shelves and wander aimlessly around the polished off-white aisles of K-mart. My body is synchronised to the routine ticking of my weekdays.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

– You do realise of course that today is the most important day of your life.

Sleepwalker often blurts out things out of nowhere. I say, and how so?

– Actually this is the most important day in the history of the universe.

I barely humour him. I continue to eat. Maybe just let out a half-hearted wry smile.

– Everything from the very beginning of time has led to this point. From the big bang to the seven essential proteins rising from the primordial soup to form the building blocks of life, the rise of humanity, all the wars, all human innovations, every human success, every failure, every sacrifice, every selfish act — they all have led to this day. And let’s not stop there. There’s you. Your parents, your upbringing, your choices, your efforts, every risk you’ve ever taken and all the ones you didn’t take, every path you’ve ever walked. Everything that has come before has led to this singular moment of you and I having lunch. Right here. Right now.

He waits for a response like he always does. I make him wait like I always do. His hands mindlessly play with his Coke cup. I finish my last mouthfuls of chicken.

I say, do you always have to sound like such a wanker?

My imaginary friend smiles at me and raises his cup in my direction, beckoning me to do the same.

I don’t look at him. But I see Luigi still flirting with the girls at Michele’s. The cute girl at the newsagency is selling some guy a lottery ticket. The guy is buying his one ticket out of this place — that he may never have to eat at this food court anymore. And maybe he’ll win. Maybe he’ll never see this place again. And maybe he’s just a guy buying a lottery ticket. But all I know is that I’ll be back here tomorrow to do this all over again.

So I raise my cup to Sleepwalker and I indulge myself in a single moment of genuine contentment.

I say, cheers Sleepwalker. And he says, cheers mate. And we put our rubbish in the bin and we walk back to work.

__________

Welcome to Wonderworld.

And have a wonderful stay.

Z is for Zenith

It is with great disappointment that I now have climbed my proverbial mountain only to want nothing more than to climb the next peak. The view from up here is alright but I am speechless. Not from awe. But from lack of interest. There is no climax. There is no resolution. There is simply thinner air.

And so I shall end this well-intentioned, yet ill-advised, concept not on top of my mountain but on its foothills. I shall end at the very beginning and do something that I said I would never want to do again. I shall give my back story. And explain my existence. So here are ten not-so-interesting facts about xtn.

May God help me…

10. I stutter but not many people notice.

9. I can put both of my legs behind my head… and I make sure that everyone notices!

8. I am not fresh off the boat. And I speak English rather well. But I am not a banana. I am not friggin’ ‘white on the inside’! I hate that term! If you cut me open, I will bleed red. Just like you would.

7. I have stepped on the soil of these countries: Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, The United States of America, Mexico, England, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and Tasmania.

6. I speak fluent English, conversational Indonesian, I can understand bits of Dutch, know how to say “can you speak English?’ in French and German, ‘happy new year’ in Croatian and I can recognise most of the yum cha foods in Cantonese. I also know a couple of words in Klingon.

5. I am Indonesian by birth, Australian by citizenship, Chinese by blood and a child of television by inclination. Apparently I also had a Dutch great-grandmother. And apparently I don’t have any Indonesian blood in me, although I accept that fact with some suspicion. I also don’t look like anyone in my family. This prompts the rather improbable, and ultimately inconsequential, possibility that I was either adopted or switched at birth.

4. I was involved in the newspaper of my high school, the newspaper of my university and if my company now had a newspaper, I would probably be involved in that too.

3. I play tennis and basketball well enough, and I would agree to participate in badminton, squash, ping pong, touch footy and lawn bowls. I refuse to play sports and games which I am bad at, mostly because I try to suppress all knowledge that I am incompetent at anything.

2. I am part of the Roman Catholic church. And if you don’t like that, then may fire and brimstone rain on your village. That was a joke. Not blasphemy.

1. This blog has taken over my life.

__________

And so it ends. Twenty-six entries. A to Z.

What comes next?

More of the same. Another mixture of random rants and creative writing. Just with new window dressing. So stay tuned. I will be back here real soon. I’ve started redesigning the look of the site, I am freeing myself of any possibly cumbersome gimmicks and I’ve promised myself that what comes next will be better.

This is where I am today.

Where do I want to go now?

Y is for Youth

All I ask for is guilt-free music. But it’s getting harder and harder. It’s like they’re growing them in vats these days. Nubile 17-year-old chicks with guitars that make you feel like a paedophile just for enjoying their music. And I do enjoy their music. It’s all that mid-tempo radio-friendly guitar-pop that record companies are passing off as rock these days. Can you really ever get enough of that?

When it’s Matchbox 20, or even fully-developed women like Meredith Brooks, doing that kind of music, it’s OK. But now they come in cute little packages like Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne and Vanessa Carlton. Just watching their video clips makes me feel guilty.

It’s just their music that I like. Not them. Just the music. Nothing else. Just the music…

My friend looks up at a giant Channel V screen and Avril Lavigne is jumping up and down and he says, she's cute but she doesn’t even have breasts yet. And I say, you’re not admiring her beauty. You’re admiring her great potential.

Save me now…

X is for X

The letter X brings images of two things for me: X-men and mathematics. I’m not in the mood to talk about either right now. Talking about those two subjects would probably turn this into another ‘Yay for geeks!’ entry and frankly, I don’t feel like it.

I say quite often that I’m a geek, and yet I’ve noticed from my own behaviour that I also like to distance myself from other geeks. I buy comics but I’m not as bad as other comic readers. I watch Star trek but I’m not as sad as other Trekkies. And so on.

I guess at the end of the day, I don’t really consider myself a geek. I just happen to show undeniably geek-like qualities. Whatever that means. I think I also like to distance myself from everything and everyone. I like to watch, as they say. That’s probably why I like writing. I could try to explain all this. Although I’d probably be contradicting myself a few times along the way. But frankly, I can’t be bothered doing that either.

__________

What’s your favourite Matthew Broderick movie? If you say Godzilla, then please go away! If you say Ferris Bueller, you won’t get my agreement, but you’ll have my respect. My favourite is Biloxi Blues. Broderick and Christopher Walken make a great combination. And today I got it on video for $2. Man, I love bargains!

__________

I went wine tasting last night. That’s twice in two weeks. I still can’t tell much about it. I know what I like and don’t like. And that’s about it. For now I’m sticking to whites… and the odd sparkling red.

__________

My friend Jo got engaged yesterday. They looked really happy. And I’m really happy for them. I could’ve been really happy for myself too cos I met this really nice girl there. But apparently she’s been spoken for. Oh well. Such is life…

__________

Phantom Planet is a good band. I just discovered them now. The sound like Travis would sound if they lightened up once in a while.

__________

I took a drive to Rookwood cemetery today. It reminded me that there’s this one story that I’d like to tell. It would be my most important story. But I’m just afraid to write it cos after that, I don’t think I’ll have any more stories to tell. But until then, I guess I’m just beating around the bush…

__________

My friend just got back from New Zealand (I was in Old Zealand just under a year ago) and as a coming-home present, I got him a Mandy Moore photo book. We were at a bar and he was too embarrassed to take it out of the plastic bag. What could possibly be so embarrassing about a 23-year-old liking Mandy Moore??!

Did I just say that out loud?

__________

What else? Oh yeah… two to go.