addictions December 14, 2006

i have an addictive personality and have had to deal with all kinds of ridiculous life-threatening addictions all my life. chocolates have singlehandedly locked my stomach in an eternal state of flubbiness, Lifesavers have made the most dire life situations manageable, Mentos chewable dragees keep my jaws strong, shiny surfaces keep my wrists slim because i just can’t see a fingerprint/mark on them, and then, and then there’s 24.

as a hormonally charged pre-teen/teen, Kiefer Sutherland was The One. he was a courageous and charming Musketeer, a sexy pistol-wielding cowboy in Young Guns, a wildly insane medical student willing to take risks and oh my God, who can resist getting dried out by a thirsty, flying hot tamale vampire?

Toms, Keanus, Brads, Emilios came and went, but i pined after Kiefer. i got mad when people spelled his name Keifer. my primary schoolmates thought i was crazy cos they said Kiefer looked like their uncles or fathers. in some ways, Kiefer was my first (tv) love. he isn’t conventionally good looking, but that badboy streak, that streetwiseness he portrays is oh-so-fucking-sexy. give me a man who’s smooth with a sword with feathers in his hat and i would submit my virginity on a silver plate. i wanted to bear his button-nosed children and protect him from my pickaxe wielding father enraged that his daughter’s been violated.

and then somewhere along the line, i grew older, pretended i liked boybands when i really didn’t and faced bigger problems than finding a way to buy an airticket to Hollywood and look for Mr Dali Sutherland. like, oh you know, the perpetual afro state of my hair, classmates putting their pens in my nest and classroom partners snipping off my curls to paste in their books (you know who you are) and how to get boys to like me when they were so afraid of how smart i was *smug* in this aspect, it’s very sad to note a lot of boys don’t grow out of that.

then i started to hate college and stopped going, started working to find out what the real world is really like, met a bunch of potential boyfriends and many assholes along the way, in other words, i forgot about Kiefer Sutherland. when 24 first aired on tv, i could barely catch it, i almost never watched tv and was even worse with remembering which program aired when. and then a colleague lent me 24 DVDs and my love for Kiefer Sutherland rekindled. entire weekends dissolved when i sat on the sofa with the curtains drawn and i could not tell night from day, i could only tell the hours i’ve lived in 24hrs land.

Jack Bauer’s older, scruffier, carries a heavy heart but always manages to shine through with allegiance, old-school honour, kindness, love and humanity. and he keeps his word. that is too fuckable. i wanted to marry him again. Ravi offered me a ticket to Hollywood. he knows better than anyone that if i were ever to meet Kiefer Sutherland, all i’ll do is offer a handshake, look cool, tell him i love 24, and be on my way. not everyone’s as lucky as Katie Holmes.

some might argue i’m into the much older man (hence Ravi), that what i really need is a father figure, but that’s another conversation for another day. what i really need now is another fix of 24, season 6 airs in January and i know i’m gonna be scratching the walls on our living room cos there’s no way i could get my hands on those DVDs for weeks after that. i was upset Tony Almeida was off-ed in season 5 but there better be a hot Chinese dude in the next season.

Eds – let’s see if you can break my record of watching 18 episodes in a row. now, i’ll go make some roti jala for my very own button-nosed Kiefer Sutherland at home.

eccentric manifestations of the wildly imaginative December 13, 2006

it’s things like these that tell me i need Ravi in my life. i’ve been bitching for days about our 5 months old rice cooker that doesn’t work anymore. i was so bummed that our rice cooker didn’t work, and threw some rice/water in the microwave. Ravi came back, saw the dishes, then asked about the rice and i said, the darn thing won’t work.

he checked it out – the electrical cable was not attached to the rice cooker.

he chuckled, said, “bodoh, write about this on your blog.”

and this is why Ravi is my perfect spouse for life. not only does he show me i’m stupid, he repeats it verbally.

i love finding that one perfect accessory, or that one perfect pair of shoes that i will use till it wears out. an ex-colleague once asked why i wore my favourite pair of shoes till the sole flapped lightly in the wind, “i love it too much to let it sit on a rack.” when it rots, i even buy a new pair of the same thing if i can find it. sometimes, these items can be a steal at less than $50, but more often than not, the things i feel i must have for the very health of my being are a little pricey.

love this ring, how do these guys come up with these stuff? if i could sprinkle magic dust over it and offer a kiss to Little Frosch each time i needed Ravi, i’d empty both our bank accounts. when Ravi saw me gushing over this, he only asked matter-of-factly, “how much is that going to cost me?” not a dime, love – that little crown’s gonna get stuck in my hair and my clothes.

the weeks i’d spent looking for the perfect wedding ring design, something similar to this came up on the drawing board, but i opted for something more stable instead – there are few things more upsetting than losing an expensive rock. and i’d get obsessive about cleaning between the gap.

pretty things hurrah! and Mr Douglas Little, modern alchemists and purveyors of curious goods is just full of it. at one point of time, i’d stopped blogging because i wanted to go back to e-mailing, i found it more personal between friends. a few years ago, we were still sending letters and writing letters to each other, i’d start that again if i had a pretty box like this. there’s something incredibly sensual about the curves and the visual of age makes me feel that i can only write wise letters if i stored stationery in this box.

we’re trying to make a smooth transition to organic living. and there were some nice surprises. Whole Earth Foods makes the best, and i mean, the best Cocoa Crunch cereal in the world. i tried not to finish the entire box the same day i opened it.

and i had no idea that organic sugar-free vanilla yoghurt slides over your tongue like silk and tastes this good. creamy wholesome goodness.

but not all was good though, i asked the Organic Foods & Cafe staff for fabric softener, and he pointed out a tub of softener to me. after 5 minutes of reading the label together, we couldn’t figure out how to use it, but i said, nevermind, i’ll figure it out. when i got home, it occurred to me, that the tub of white powder is a water softener, not fabric softener.  suddenly all that kalktalk on the label made sense. and then i was annoyed, what the hell am i gonna do with a whole tub of water softener when i have laundry to do?

perhaps liberally sprinkle it all over Dubai, Christmas is coming.

seeing liver spots December 10, 2006

sitting here bitching to myself about the lack of good tv shows at the moment, sipping Lipton black tea like any citizen of a post-Brit-colonized era should and contemplating the different ways i will die now that i’ve found out that my Waitrose fabric softener contains amongst other chemicals, embalming fluid formaldehyde.

i would rather walk around in crispy, stiff, rough panties that chafe my luscious buttocks than swaddle myself with 5% formaldehyde. that’s 0% away from what the privileged dead are generously embalmed in. useless trivia of the day – formaldehyde makes up 5 – 29% of embalming fluid.

some days ago, i had the honour of having dinner with Ravi’s business associates when i was with him in Abu Dhabi.

i’m not sure if i was more disturbed by

1. the alarming number of horny men at the restaurant, some of whom were pretending they were not interested in the belly dancer who dances no better than William Hung, or
2. the two Lebanese women who were beautiful but were either cursed with bad fashion sense or a serious case of delusion with regards to size as those were not miniskirts, rather, they were nanominis, or
3. that i had swallowed raw sheep whole (for those frequently confused over lamb and mutton, lamb is meat from sheep below a year old and mutton is meat procured from the sheep equivalent of old hags).

i’m adventurous with food unless it’s tomato ice-cream (i’ll leave that to you, E love) and didn’t see any harm in trying raw lamb, spiced raw lamb and raw lamb liver. Ravi was, without doubt, absolutely horrified that soon after that, his lips would have to meet with those which licked a bleating sheep. i’d had beef tartar (raw ground beef, spices and raw egg) before, the Brits discovered fire soon after. the taste was distinctly bland and i felt that the extra calories and microorganisms i was pounding into myself were absolutely redundant.

the raw lamb was also bland with a disgusting texture on the tongue – soft, malleable, a tad gooey. like having melted Playdoh in your mouth. that wasn’t too bad.

spiced raw lamb was very much like raw lamb, hah, except i just couldn’t taste the spices because i was too distracted by the rolling mounds of plasticine in my mouth.

the raw lamb liver mocked me with all of its deep red smooth surface from my starter plate. our Lebanese friend sitting opposite me watched as i lifted the cold liver cube up into my mouth. the regret was instantaneous and i relived the nightmare of eating Oreo cereal with fresh goatmilk all over again. the hair at the nape of my neck stood on end and my hand froze as i chewed on the rubbery square sheep in my mouth and decided against spitting it out (it’s impolite and unglamorous). the cube was too large to be swallowed immediately and i could not risk the humiliation of a very public Heimlich manouvre while men were busy covering their groins and drooling over the stiff belly dancer with ample, jiggling boobs.

so i chewed quickly and the essence of the liver cube oozed out and swirled all around my mouth. i reached out and grabbed a bread, dipped it in a large portion of hummus and stuffed it down my throat.

raw lamb liver = concentrated sheep essence. it tasted like liquid baaaa going into your mouth, i won’t be repeating this anytime soon.

this picture reminds me of the good old times i used to see an entire Saturday disappear when i bathed all 7 cats. they all looked as miserable as this kitty here.

for you narcissists and psychos comfortable with talking to a videocam on a stick, the QuikPod is for you. i’m just happy my Powershot has a flippable display screen. i’m not gonna carry a stick around when i can ask nice locals to take shots for me, though most of them them do leave a lot to be desired with regards to the composition of the shot.

being overly confident about being fat December 5, 2006

i keep making the same mistake with regards to cold cities.

the weather guys are saying it’s 14 – 22°C, what they don’t tell you is how sharply the wind cuts and how the freezing weekend rain imprisons you inside your hotel room watching Oprah, The View and Martha, and re-runs of Oprah, The View and Martha. the weekend rain caused floods in some cities in UAE, they don’t quite have an extensive drainage system because it doesn’t rain 355 days a year.

i brought two pairs of tights, one shawl and some other stuff including two sleeveless dresses including a cheongsam. i’m gonna have to remove the part of my brain which believes keeping one’s legs warm also keeps one’s arms warm. very much like how i travelled around Rajasthan without as much as bringing a single long-sleeved shirt, jacket or shawl when it was 12°C and dropped to 10°C when you’re whizzing around in those little three-wheeled tuk-tuks. also very much like how i brought one whole jacket to stay with my aunt outside of Frankfurt when it was 2 – 5°C and was forced to wear her ivory stockings under my pants.

having fed myself so well all my life, i’d have thought my fat cells could have performed a little better. like those Russian women who enjoy dipping themselves towards hypothermia in subzero lakes. my nipples would drop off in subzero Russian lakes.

invested in a cardigan which does not match ¾ of my wardrobe and thanked God we didn’t stay in a place with extreme temperatures or i’d be fussing over how few practical things match anything else aesthetically. practical beautiful things also cost $200 more than anything else.

but then again, if i lived in a place closer to the South Pole, i might be able to see these penguins protest against Santa a little more intimately and invite them over for hot chocolate.

i love penguins. i love their waddle. i cried watching March of the Penguins. Ravi cried too, but out of regret for trusting i’d bought tickets to a movie with actual humans moving across the screen.

i’d asked for a pet penguin twice but Ravi told me about the bills we’d have to pay with a giant freezer and icy slides. besides, they should remain in the wild.

i’m enamoured by this cracked cabinet. i’m no kid, but it makes me want to be a rich kid – cos this cabinet costs a whopping $4500.

dropping Celsius points driving me to daily hibernation indulges. for someone who hates afternoon naps, i’ve been unable to control the urge of 2 hour naps these days. i feel very, very naughty.

cab fab December 1, 2006

i took two hours to pack my luggage, not because it takes two hours, but because i streeeeeetched packing for as long as i could. not having Ravi around has finally taken its toll on me and i need to keep my mind and hands busy.

went to Paul’s, a patisserie, for medium-well beef tenderloin, baby potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, steamed carrots, whole beans and a chocolate milkshake. bought a beautiful vanilla custard pastry thingy which saw me glamorously scrapping every last glob of vanilla off the takeaway box and slurping loudly, 12 pieces of madeleines in case our friend i’m picking up from the airport is hungry at 0600, a chocolate cake to greet Ravi with when i see him in Abu Dhabi later.

it was OK at Paul’s for a while, then i was miserable, then numb. Ravi and i go to Paul’s a lot. suddenly the Paris Interiors coffeetable book i was flipping through was just not interesting enough. at the taxi queue, it was obvious i was gonna wait at least 30 minutes. if my heels were not cutting into my pinkies, i would have chosen to walk the 30 minutes home. at Burjuman Mall, cabs are plentiful between 1800 – 2100, but after that, somehow, all the cabs disappear ala Singapore style come midnight once the midnight surcharge comes into effect. the line was long, with at least 15 people in front of me.

only in Dubai, can you see people drive to the cabstand in their private cars and offer a ride to passengers willing to pay the fee and the price. when i say price, i don’t just mean the fee itself, i mean the risk of being uninsured in someone else’s car should something happen to you, the risk of being held at knifepoint and robbed blind, or worse, raped and left somewhere in the desert.

i’d rather die in a licensed, insured cab.

after 30 minutes, a girl 6 people behind me marched up to the security guard of the mall and started bitching like only half-brained shit can.

• why complain about the 20 minutes you’ve waited for a taxi when you could have easily called for a cab and pay the extra reservation fee? we’ve all waited longer than you have, sweetheart.
• why are you screaming at the guard about people standing outside the line waiting for illegal cabs, bitching about how these people are getting cabs faster than those in line are? we are all in line because honeybuns, we are waiting for licensed cabs. if you wanna scoot off, you are welcome to step outside the line and open yourself up to the risk of getting your tight red top ripped off of you by an illegal cabbie because he too just can’t stand how bitchy you are in the cab. the guard can’t manage people waiting for illegal cabs because hmmm, it’s fuckin’ illegal, you dumbfuck.

after Her Tightassness made such an embarrassing ruckus, she stomped back in line. oh my wonderful tooshies, please, oh please, if you feel like bullying someone, belittling someone who’s bringing home minimum wage to feed his family back home in India or Pakistan, just fucking kill some roaches. i don’t know what your parents taught you, that being miserable is not such a bad idea.

oh, and what a pout.

40 minutes, and finally, i was at the front of the queue. in Singapore, i would never have waited, but i was just so pleased to get out of the house into cool, dry wind, that standing poised for 40 minutes, breathing in occasional car fumes, the runaway cigarette smoke and fresh air was just too refreshing to pass up.

when i saw the lit yellow TAXI sign, i was relieved. but that was short-lived. when i say i’d rather die in a licensed, insured cab, i didn’t mean i actually want to die. out of 10 cabs i take here, 8 will speed and swerve between lanes, and worse, 9 will make phonecalls or take calls without handsfree sets with one hand on the steering wheel and a happy heavy foot on the accelerator while swerving between lanes.

and i thought, “oh God, i just don’t want to die right now, we’re only 10 minutes away.”

some don’t even wear seatbelts. i’m not sure if they’re worried about how their families back in Pakistan, Iran or India will survive if they die in an avoidable car accident. i know one thing for sure though, a lot of these bad habits were brought here from back home, but this doesn’t mean the local authorities can’t change this with education, awareness and reinforcement.

some people roll their eyes when i’m anal about seatbelts.

i don’t mind if they scoff at me the times i request specifically for a driver with a car which has working seatbelts. if i can help it, i’d like to die on my own terms, not flying through a windscreen and smashing my innards all over the road.