Give me Love and Money, I have the rest already

I stubbed out my fag in the ashtray and detached myself from the page-turner that I was holding. It was the first time that I’ve been to One Fullerton and honestly speaking, I think it’s beautiful. If not for some careless girl’s negilgence, I would not even have discovered this place.

I checked out the crowd (people watching has always been my unofficial obsession). To my right, a Caucasian girl scissored her chocolate muffin with a fork. She gingerly placed the fork into her mouth, as though her sin would go unnoticed if she was cautious about it. She herself was buried in a book, and I was tempted to sit myself beside her to find out what she was reading.

Glancing over to my left, a Harrison Ford lookalike was on the phone. Pristinely ironed shirt, tie, suitcase and all, I whispered "businessman" under my breath. "No kidding? That’s fantastic. Well congratulations…….." I eavesdropped.

In front of me, 3 Korean girls. While I measured them from their Gucci shades and Chanel handbags, I was certain that they were judging me as well from my pierced ears and tattooed arms.

I picked up my phone and called Katie. Her name is spelled as  K a t i e  in my phonebook because I realised that by putting spaces in between, she would be the first to appear when I press K. The very first photo that I took of her flashed on my handphone screen and I pressed the phone onto my ear. I amused her with my childish jokes and it seemed to please her. Before we put down the phone, she said "I miss you". And with a smile fondly on my face, I replied in reciprocation.

I took a deep breath and continued to read from my book…..

"The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it."

Suddenly, being lost in transition doesn’t seem so bad after all.

One year ago, it was very much different.

I watched the whole of Wimbledon and managed to write down a pretty opinionated entry on it. I discovered my denial of affection when I made my annual trip to the temple to pay respects to Shuping. I watched Superman and extracted a romantic portion of it onto paper.

This year.

I missed the whole Wimbledon tournament and I forgot about Shuping’s anniversary. I watch many movies but I excuse myself from having a deeper meaning of the shows. I’m starting to ……go through the motion….

As I become more involved in the materialistic things in life, I start to lose pieces of myself to this insane whirlpool of desires.

And as I strive to contribute to social economic growth and family welfare, I realise it doesn’t satisfy me.

Time is a major factor in my equation. And these days, people DEMAND time from me. It’s almost out of my own jurisdiction.

On the day I stayed at home, I switched on the DVD player and watched Monsters Inc. with MingMing. Together. It was very satisfying in a non-materialiastic manner. At the age of 26, I toy with the idea of early retirement. *scratches head*