Still can't sleep. Reminiscing Matah Ati especially the finale Act 17, their way to "censor" was not by dropping black curtain on the stage or making the stage unlit. Instead, they made the stage brighter, adding more light to it. Government could use this philosophy, don't you think? :)

Garance's latest post is about shopping at Zara. This reminds me, Zara once saved my skin. Suatu saat, sekitar abis lulus kuliah, abis ujan, gw naik ojek, pake jaket dari toko tersebut. Si abang ga liat polisi tidur, terpentalah gw dari ojek ke tanah ya sodara-sodara, lalu terseretlah gw beberapa meter di atas aspal berbatu-batu yang harusnya makin tajam karena abis ujan tanpa si abang menyadarinya. Tangan gw satu pegangan ke bagian belakang motor, badan posisi side plank. Saat gw berdiri lagi, jaket  gw itu cuma kotor, tidak sobek, dan kulit tangan gw tidak tergores sedikitpun. Bahan memang tidak bohong. Dan ya, gw sangat suka jaket-jaketnya walaupun di sini cuma bisa dipake saat sakit yaaa seperti hari ini.

Dystopian Nap

The best nap I've had my whole life is on Gili T beach only to be waken up by some drizzle. One of the strongest naps, I just had it today after one panadol and cough med. So here I am staring at my laptop only because my iPod is charging. Then I thought about evolution. They always tell us about survival of the fittest which extensively means the success rate of your gene continuation to another generation by first misleading the opposite sex. However, with limited resources, water, and worse climate I think it wise to change the definition of success rate related to evolution. It shouldn't be about filling up the world with your descendants rather, we should think what is it the best for the earth. Maybe less people so there will be less people fight over gas and other minerals? Because clearly with shortages of energy, I can't handle the thought of delivering people into this world without being sure that they'll be okay and they'll get enough and be happy. Being a parent would be the most difficult job.  

Green and Red

With my lack of cosmetics or wave or color knowledge, I found it imperceptible that red and green naturalize each other. Funny enough, this random information came back to back in less than one month. It was all started with this:

1. Michelle Phan using mint green color stick concealer to counteract redness. Yep."As you guys know, green and red are complementary colors, they neutralize each other out." Whaa? I did not know that, Michelle! 

2. Then, I decided to think less about make up, giving days like this a break and slouched on my bed reading Middlesex. Just when you thought hermaphrodite epic poetry (Calliope) with her twentieth century america wouldn't touch cosmetics issue....then came page 351 when Callie went to Sophie Sasson's saloon to have a "Waxing Lyrical", Sasson needed one hour and forty five minutes every morning to fix her face, and below is just a small portion of it:

"She had to apply eye creams and under-eye creams. She had to lay down various layers, like shellacking a Stardivarius. In addition to the brick-colored final coat there were others: dabs of green to control redness, pinks to add blush, blues above the eyes."

3. When the zeal to finish Middlesex is at the peak, I forgot to bring the book meanwhile I had to wait for somebody. My genius swift acumen swiveled me to a bookstore nearby to buy some book I'd laid my eyes upon merely because of its cute cover, Ayu Utami's "Lalita". Behold, red and green didn't escape me. At the back of the book there's this instruction to stare at a green three-petal form, arranged in a peace symbol with yellow rim. If you stare in several second then you shift your eyes to a white object, then look at that three-petal form again, you'll see pink scintillant hue. This is because green and red are "contraries" but not "oppositions".

So, that's some new knowledge, properly brought to me before christmas :)

the wait is killing me.

Siapa?

Malam-malam ini ya...ceritanya two broke girls in an apartment, tanggal tua, gas habis, mie instan ga bisa dimasak, tinggal gerogotin flax seed, kiwi, youghurt strawberry, diserut-serut campur dalam gelas bening, serupa parfait. Ngabisin T2 tea gorgeous geisha, mengais-ngais dari zaman keemasan masa awal bulan. Untung gadis yang satu cukup inisiatif beli nasi warteg di bawah, dibagi dualah nasi bungkus ieu nya, pleus sisa-sisa kerupuk melempem. Yang satu pake rok pendek turquoise yang satu pake celana tidur, atasannya sama-sama kaos hitam. Ngomongin pergolakan negeri hari itu, biar ga basi-basi amat.

There is nothing attractive about negativity and constant complaints. Highlighting one's sorrow for display is offensive for people since they have problems too. Problems which they hide, try to solve, or out of politeness, they won't let you affected by it. Complaining also belittles the weight of others' burden. The worst kind of complaint is if you knew that would be the consequences but you chose that path anyway. We are all trying to live here, at least in civil ways. Put your negativity and complaints into a black hole, enjoy every moment, and spread positivity. 

Because...

...who would have made tone-less sighs as backing vocal better than THE initial BB?


Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg - "Je t'aime moi non Plus": the ultimate sighing/whispering-only style song, BB opened the way for Lana Del Rey.

Vanity

I woke up in daze after what's supposed to be a power nap. Piles and piles of schedule from the weeks before left me in sleep deprivation, consolidated with three days without my eyecream. That forced a beauty sleep to be slipped into a busy happy hour Friday. 

I got a dinner plan that night at 8, snoozed my alarm at 8, then automatically opened my inbox, a latent habit of mine which is not very great. Apparently most of the attendees would be late. Good. I changed clothes and dabbed some darkhorse shadows on my eyes. 

The dinner place where we wanted to go was always packed. But apparently, my friend, being a busy banker who should assess credit approval for the mid level companies in Indonesia, matching their performance with the green compliance, and who just got back from her 10-day business training in Hong Kong forgot to book the place and thinking we were one of the "it" clans in Jakarta who could just snatch any table in this city. No, we were not. 

When we are dancing and you're dangerously close to me, I get ideas. I want to hold you so much closer than I dare do.

TED

"I want somebody to bang his head, making him realize what he truly feels (about me)." But girlfriend, his pals are not a teddy bear, his pals will give him booze, striptease vouchers, and advice him to forget your intelligent face with that glasses, your political thoughts, your similar hobbies. They would say raw meat are everywhere for him to enter in. He is free, independent, and self-sufficient, why would he need your insight and frequent make out with the same person. Not all guys have a talking teddy bear. And maybe he is just not that into you. Moreover, as someone said, all relationships are the wrong one, they will end, unless you're in the right one. 

Kisses for all my girl friends.

My Trip to Solo

Current Fixation

"All parents tend to be more conservative for their kids than they would for themselves, simply because, as parents, they share risks more than rewards. If your eight year old son decides to climb a tall tree, or your teenage daughter decides to date the local bad boy, you won't get a share in the excitement, but if your son falls, or your daughter gets pregnant, you'll have to deal with the consequences." from "How To Do What You Love"

about race, religion, color, ethnicity, and so on... It is all in our mind. Freedom of expression defenders would say, expression will not harm others, but what you do to others will. However, I would love to imagine, when the world is sterile, say people one hundred percent will not harm others physically, mentally, anything tangible, everyone upholds human rights, no war and no blood shed, what is left is what we have in our mind. If we think that basically Papuan people are slaves, but we refrain from slaving them around right now... I don't know maybe because the law says you shouldn't, because we don't want them to attack or us back, what would we do with that inert hatred in a sterile world? When all of our limbs are immobilized and human race communicates through language of the soul, no physical contact, what is left other than our thought? That is why I've always thought, the regulation "do not harm others" is for imperfect society, the society of "at least", society which is only responsible and only regulates what is tangible, what we can sense and absorb with our five senses. Of course we shouldn't regulate what people have in minds and put the Big Brother in everyone's brain. That is why government promotes education, etc to improve common agreeable term of what is good. To hold each of us responsible, even if we are not being watched by the law. But, Haidt said, "Reason doesn’t work like a judge or teacher, impartially weighing evidence or guiding us to wisdom. It works more like a lawyer or press secretary, justifying our acts and judgments to others." Yes, I am now still questioning the use of education and reason, honestly. Btw, if our mind still think what is different is bad, what happens is not genuine respect. It is, instead, talking behind people's back and progressing as a society in snail km per hour.

They say, if you love someone, you have to let em go. Now, where could I sue for insurance if this method doesn't work?

Btw, I've broken several DeStorm's commandments in this hilarious video:

Love Letter to a Friend on Her Wedding Day

“So, what do you think about her husband?” a friend asked me.

Bandung, July 14th 2012. We were sitting on abandoned chairs, sipping delish beer from one glass, and some, smoked skinny cigs. It was almost the end of the depressingly beautiful wedding of my friend. It was so beautiful, it’s depressing. In a good way.

“I don’t know her ex-es much, but all I know since she was with this one, her blog’s background color turned white, from black. Less drama, more footprints in life.”

I am not her best friend, I am not her casual friend. All I know, she’s always been there. She encouraged me to blog (my first blog was born in FISIP internet café when we skipped a class), we pulled all nighter for Children Literature essays, she’s a deadliner because she was very good at it she didn’t need much time. We had on-the-bed conversations in college, and after-work conversations when we started working, until one day she decided to move to another country. But every time she’s here, she’s there for me. She was my emergency contact when things got rough with my ex, and she was there waiting for me on the stairs to my place just to make sure that I was alright.

Her mind is so whimsical, small part of it you can see on her Alice in the Wonderland left upperarm tattoo. I had always thought that this chirpy happy go lucky gal with some dark twist would have a DIY-type of wedding. I was wrong, the whole occasion and the bride were so poised. She’s no longer that girl who needed my ears, sometime my advice, for wrong turn of events. She’s no longer a person who didn’t know what she wanted, or let bad things happen to her. She was in control, content, and wise. I wondered where this came from. Just kidding, Sisie. When I saw her standing waiting for Yann with Chrisye’s “Untukku” background song, I saw a lady whom was not carried away by haphazard of options, instead, steadfastly chose what her heart wants. “Le coeur veut ce que le coeur veut”.

Sisie, when I saw your first dance to John Lennon’s “Real Love”, it's breathtaking to see that you’ve come this far. I was so happy for you that the bruises from the past and wisdom among the way sharpened the way you stand in life. You looked so beautiful in that red kebaya with la belle epoque hairdo. You deserved every second of it, Sisie. And I pray, every second in years you will be with Yann will be even more than that.

Congratulations Sisie and Yann, bisous.

   from this (post-on-bed-convo, college year)

   to this!

   (photos by Andrei Widen a.k.a @gonetotimbuktu)

    Sisie, waiting for Yann. "Untukku" on the background

   
    First Dance: "Real Love"

    we've come a long way ;)

    

    

M. Ward

hold time;
the song's mood is indeed like an endless reverie

One Fine Day

The last one week has been a tiring week, work-wise. This Saturday I decided to end the week productively by going to the office in the morning and doing the things I like for the rest of the day; pointless conversation with dear friends, taking photos, going to museum.

Bangkok First Timer

succinct post for split-second thought:
My first day in BKK, yaiy!
Gotta love Bangkok, because:

1. Their 'national' color is purple (or at least that's my conclusion from seeing Thai Airways, Siam Commercial Bank, and Siam Paragon Mall color palate). Purple is my favorite color. Ergo, nice choice, royalties of Thailand.

2. Maybe, there's a slight possibility that I'd go play for my own team if I stayed longer here. All those pretty and sexy women!

3. Easy public transportation and over the street pedestrian walk. Moreover, most of them are connected to big malls and hotel. Very convenient and people can walk! Oh, things you can't do in JKT. I wonder what it takes to make this kind of public facility in JKT. Vote for the capable governor this July, people.

4. Women can basically wear anything without getting verbal harassment or degrading stare or accused by the politicians afterwards.

5. What is you fav Danish biscuit? Mine is the vanilla ring. BKK sells one separate box, which consists of only those lovely rings. You don't say??!! :D


For point number 3 and 4, Indonesian more superior, average real GDP Growth 2011-2015 compared to Thailand clearly doesn't translate much to our public policy development.
Based on OECD's South East Asian Economic Outlook, IND's is 6.6, meanwhile THAI's is 5.2. This GDP superiority was also combusted by Gita Wirjawan in TEDxJKT talk few months ago.



Tiring day so far, let's see what tomorrow brings.