From the Ashes

Random thoughts

2008-07-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

What is love?

Is it even important?

I tell myself from time to time that I would rather die alone and loveless, than trapped in a love that does not become me.

It's been a constant refrain ever since Karin.

Time has shattered the sanctity of these memories; once I protected my past from prying eyes... not so much for me, but for Her.

Now I realise it really really doesn't matter anymore. Time heals some things, and breaks others.

Time has shown me the ultimate truth - that I really don't know anything at all. And where once I lived in black and white, everything now is just shades of grey.

I have become a Grey man, like the timestealing creatures in Momo. One of the hordes.

I don't think I ever knew what love is; I was just trying to find meaning in my life.

Things have been rather bleak these last few weeks, resulting in an attempt to relinquish what little meaning I had rediscovered, from my life.

I'm just so tired, tired of soul-consuming work, tired of this country; tired of the rigid mindsets of those around me; tired to discover that those like me have relinquished their.. life, and blended comfortably into the comfortable, calm, lulling little niches this society opens up for them. I am tired of fighting to stay alive.

Love, to me once, was that pitter patter (or the Singlified version, as a friend of Ting's said in passing, the pikpokpikpok) in your heart when you met someone.

It was the thrill of looking into Her eyes, every time you met Her, and falling.

It was listening to her very witty comments, sharp like a razor's edge, and being caught off-guard, and laughing from the soul.

Scrutinizing her as she said Grace - and unconsciously shutting the world out; the other people around us... friends, strangers, or even an absence of people - everything faded. Tunnel vision. And feeling something tender, yet fierce.

Listening to Her ramble about what our friends would think, if they knew we were together (and in truth, just her friends, because mine wouldn't know what to think. Hers, methinks, would have been shocked, because She was so very much, and so clearly unsuitable for me)... hearing incredulously, her say things about a future that I knew could never be.

And believing Her for a while, and feeling only happiness.

Wanting to stay forever friends.

Leaving because you did not wish to seek to jeapordize her world any longer.

I took all that to be love. An even mix of infatuation, perhaps-love, and.. the knowledge of an impossible love, fleetingly conquered by hope.

I look back now and realise that perhaps I was wrong.

There are so many different kinds of love.

Wanting to exist for someone.
Craving affection and adoration from someone - anyone.
Appreciation of someone loving you.

There are more; I have not, this lifetime experienced the full complement.

I don't know what I want anymore.

All I know is that, looking back...

I remember Grace Kusumawidjaja, a little.
She had a pretty face, and a wickedly curved beak of a nose. Her attraction lay in her love for life, and her laughter. She was fiercely alive... spoilt, and passionate.

She wanted to be loved, and was capable of betrayal to serve her own needs.

I don't remember her eyes.

I remember Lynette.
She, too had a desire to be loved, and a great capacity to give love in return. She craved the perfect little life... to show off to the world.

I don't remember her eyes, either.

I remember Vaya, we were more friends who spoke of loving, than two people truly in love..
She was vivacious, and quirky. She had a pretty, elfin face that belied her age, and a mind that lived for, and thought in music. Something in my gut told me that her random-ness was born of something painful in her past, a front that had become so practiced it was her new persona.
I wish her well now; I wish her all happiness with her new life.

I don't really remember her eyes very well, but there is a slight memory in my head.

And then I remember Karin. Chia Kim Mae, Karin.
And all I remember are her eyes.

The knowledge is here now, hammered in by age and a life thus far wasted.
It is all gone, all my past.

It doesn't matter any longer, because it was so long ago; and I can speak freely here at last, now that I have nobody left to read this, or care about it.

All I wonder is ... next week, when the axe falls.
Or the week after next.

Or years from now, perhaps a myriad relationships from now

One day when I am old

Whose eyes will I remember?

Tired

2008-07-17T05:09:00.000-07:00

There was a perfect, full moon tonight.

Perfect to run under,
with her,
In another lifetime.

*****
It seems I have my answer now.

There are no second chances.

Hush, my darling

2008-07-16T06:51:00.000-07:00

It strikes me that silence is a secret language all in itself.

It can say nothing, yet speak volumes; imply consent or scream refusal.

It can be premeditated, or borne of spur-of-the-moment neglect.

It can be, by comission, an unspoken truth, or by omission, a lie untold.

It flits by before one can react, or crawls, one exponentially elongating second after the other, an agonising eternity within which to lose oneself..

A double-edged sword of the keenest intent.

*****
You say it all... when you say nothing at all

Simpler

2008-07-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

Big Fried Fish

2008-07-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

It amuses me when Sara tells me that my rightful place is in the Premiere league, not being wasted in the S league.

It reminds me of the scene in "Wanted" (which was very bloody with a so-so plot, but had angelina jolie in it...) when whositwhatsit (Somethingorothermorgan) is doing his Do you want to be like Them?? Ordinary?!?! rant (strangely reminiscent of something an ex girlfriend said to me once, but that had something to do with dress-sense)

I have no super powers, no lightning quick reflexes or bullet-curving skills.

But apparently I have (according to Sara, also known as HostSara, whom I shall publically name and shame today as one of my closest friends because she is not-shy-one, and doesn't care if being seen in public with shabby re-minisce will ruin her rep) charm, and am well-spoken, and if I learnt to control my powers, confidence and wit enough to melt a girl's heart, or at least her panties.

Oh, it would be fun.
And I think I would like that... play-acting like Style till it became second nature to me.
It's all sleight of mind. Being the string, and not the cat. Never professing your love, or even attraction. Being Bad.

And I can do Bad. It's been in my blood ever since primary school. Laugh.

But the thing is... the day I start playing the Game, I have lost hope in Good.

And the truth is I've never been playing in any league.

Just... walking on by.
From my past? Or from my future?

*****
There are three tenets in life, I believe.

Truth,
Love,
and Courage.

*****
Speaking online to a pretty stranger (If memory serves me right) tonight, she reminded me how good it felt, to be past trivial concerns like faith, and fidelity, and trust and truth.

Love, actually (rehashed)

2008-07-12T13:51:00.001-07:00

I've written about love quite a few times, dating back to the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and modems spoke in audible handshaking signals to each other, and blogs were web-pages lovingly created by hand.

I look back now and marvel at my naivete.

Love, when I was younger, was something that was given freely. You give yourself totally to someone, and what happens in return is immaterial. You have loved.

Then I grew older, and after the infamous story of K, felt the need to receive love, but was strangely unmoved when I did. I thought then in my self-obsession that I had perhaps lost the capacity to love.

Now I realise that relationships between two people are by definition dynamic, and bilateral (bicameral? heh). They need not necessarily be completely reciprocal, but a balance must be struck between giving, and taking.

Or else all you have is an effigy of a relationship.

Slide the balance too far to the left, and one becomes the giver, taken for granted; the other, the taker, wielding power and the right to be merciful, or not.

I believe now that to give love a chance at growing (after initial infatuation, aka the inaptly named honeymoon period), there must exist a mutual respect, and admiration - which can only exist with Balance.

Having listened to Sara on the phone (sounds like a song title. Sara on the Phone) for almost the entire night now... the question foremost in my mind is this.

Can there truly be Second Chances? And can love grow once the balance has been lost - will the slider ever be able to rest comfortably in the center again - or does petty vengeance and self-obsession invariably tilt the scales.

I wonder.

The Game

2008-07-08T09:35:00.001-07:00

I've started reading a book Sara literally bent my arm into reading, recently.

I don't know that I'll ever be out there playing the Game, but it's a good laugh, and, in retrospect there's a grain of truth in there...

There've been a few rather fetching women I've captured the attention of, this lifetime - in settings just such as the book describes. And in retrospect I realise it was quite possibly because I followed the "rules" of The Game, quite by accident.

Perhaps I am my father's son after all.

Laugh.

****
and besides, who knows? The thought is intriguing. None of the "students" in the book were remotely players to begin with.

In my youth I would have been horrified. laugh.

Sempre Fidelis

2008-07-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

This isn't a boast, just a ramble.

Through this last relationship I have learnt a lot about my own kind.

The medical circle in S'land ... somebody has to say this... It's deplorably unethical.

Just the other day, one of the regs was commenting how disturbed he was by the lack of ethics as practiced here. (foreign trained too)
This is the kind of hush hush thing that is only said in private. Saying it in public like this is virtual career suicide, but since nobody reads my blog anyway, what the hey.

In my hospital (let's call it Old Chang Kee) it's a known fact that the doctors sleep around, with the product reps, with other doctors, with nurses, with physios, and most anything that wears a skirt, except perhaps clinic assistants. I postulate that clinic assistants skirts are not conducive to quickies.

Of course everyone here is whiter than white, so you can only hear all this on very exclusive grapevines. It's a bit like going satellite tv, or digital radio. Everyone else around you is stuck on regular viewing, which only shows PG.

When you're hearing it from the horse's mouth, it becomes that much more real. Hard evidence, ahaha.

There're other forms of para-ethical dilemmas of course, like mowing through patient queues for doctor's relatives (sometimes at the expense of patient safety) or politicians and their relatives. All the kettles of fish Oriental societies brew, because we respect face, power and position above all else, and all others. It's institutionalized, and it's not relevant to this article, so... skip.

You can see how it happens, doctors here routinely marry other doctors (early, too) and wind up with vastly contrasting schedules, never really meeting up with your spouse, young beautiful product / device reps and... the nurses (i have no idea what the appeal of these are, shrug. high hemlines??) all around you. one thing leads to the other... etc.

Or perhaps the wifey is always at home taking care of baby, and again the medicine man is surrounded by sweet, young, attentive women who flash their pearlie whites at them and engage their eyes, with whatever bits of their anatomy they commonly employ.

And then there are the floundering marriages - perhaps the wifey is too demanding, too argumentative, or perhaps the husband is starting to grey, or perhaps starting to cheat himself, or there's this hot young guy at work, and nobody will ever know if we bang each other...

So you meet up with her, and she looks you in the eye, and you meet up for dinner, and then drinks, and then one thing leads to another...

Or perhaps you eye each other at different desks in clinic, and when the doors are closed hands reach for one another...

I can see how it all happens, now that I know where to look. It's a bit like looking for a ghost in a window, in those horror movies. Blink, and you've missed it.

Back in the UK, it was much healthier, really. Everyone bonked everyone after going to the pub, and everyone else knew precisely what had happened the next day, and everybody would have a laugh.

Down here its all very cloak and dagger. Very reputation ruining to be caught, high stakes, high risk. And once in a while heads of departments are caught with their cigars out and their pants down. laugh.

Whilst I can understand it all, I don't condone it.
Maybe I'm just a prude.

But if you're really committed to someone (and isn't marriage the ultimate committment? aside from work. hah.) even if she's turning into somewhat less than angelina jolie...... you made the choice when you married her. through thick and thin, sickness and in health.
If some sexy slinky sweet young thing lands in front of your desk giving you an inviting view down her cleavage... then keep the door open, and your hands where everyone including the nurses can see them.

If marriage is turning into a routine, find something novel to do with the other half, that excites both of you. Perhaps a holiday somewhere exotic, perhaps... s&m. shrug.

If you don't want to cheat on your spouse, don't go out one on one with anyone tasty at work, period.

It's really all about minimizing risk, and preventing scenarios of tempation from arising in the first place.

Because, really, once you're both taking off each other's underwear in some dark, private hole somewhere, it's rather too late to stop.

But that's where my argument breaks down.

The truth is that people here may not confess to it, but they do want to cheat. As long as they don't get caught.

I've never been married, but I do tend to enter serious relationships. I've never cheated. Not because I am pristine, but because I steer clear of uncapped soy sauce bottles.

Bittersweet

2008-07-07T04:00:00.000-07:00

When the moment came, there was a flash of relief, as expected
but then panic stepped in.

And then the realisation :

The crafted dream is over, but I wanted the reality, after all.

These thoughts always come too late.
I hate them...

*****
Being patient, going out of the way to pick someone up at three in the morning, with morning shift at seven, swallowing pride and losing arguments, bending over backwards to accomodate someone...

... those were the easy parts.
Patience? It's nothing special. Anybody can be patient, if they want to be... it doesnt bite. And if you do it out of love, it's really quite easy.

The hardest part was when I'd tell her as she got ready to go out, or as we stepped out the door that she looked wonderful, or beautiful, and she would brush me off, or almost sneer in disbelief... so saddening

... if she could have only known what I was thinking, as we lay side by side looking at each other, or as I sat over her at sunrise and looked down upon her sleep bedraggled face...

Thinking, feeling : the deepest, most aching sadness, for when the time would come, inevitably, when I would never get to see her again.

Thinking, seeing : Gut-wrenching, each time, looking down on those eyes closed in repose, and on her ears, and hair, and jawline, watching her breathing, and thinking how ugly she could look from some angles, and how how pretty from others, yet from all of them she was so, so beautiful to me.

And sometimes for no good reason at all, I found my vision misting over, as I drew my fingers lightly across her brow.

Perhaps I should have realised earlier, that it is in my nature, like it or not, to fall in love. And perhaps then I would have given us a real shot, and tried to live with her, rather than for her... who knows.

******
I set this up. I was ready for the consequences.
And maybe I will be, in time.

*****
I loved it when she bent my fingers or shoulder around at funny angles as we walked along, not because I loved the inherent sadism in it, but because it made her laugh...

Perhaps the lines got blurred, between loving, and falling in love, in my head.

Perhaps sometimes loving someone is as simple as wanting to make them laugh.

I hope I gave you something good out of all this, my love.

Foolish Games

2008-07-05T19:48:00.001-07:00

...Well excuse me,
Guess I mistaken you for,
somebody else

Somebody who gave a damn,
Somebody more like myself

- Jewel

Unspoken

2008-07-05T19:10:00.000-07:00

She took pity on him, and asked her to walk with them back to their cars; to give him some company while he waited for Her.

Later, alone, in her auntie's car she said you're very patient to wait for Her like this.

He laughed, and said oh it was nothing special. Anybody can be patient...

The Cruel Game

2008-07-05T17:15:00.000-07:00

No apology
No attempt to reconcile
Only silent tears (of rage? of anger?)
A near-end

And so it stands
my cross to bear

*****
I remember when she was telling me how she told some guy who liked her that she couldn't be with him, because she would hurt the guy she really liked.

I remember falling, a little more.

*****
Two ways to fall. In and out.

Is this my lot? Always reminiscence.

I remember
when you would go out of your way, even at risk of losing your sacred siesta, or waking up early on a Saturday morning - unthinkable for you! - to accommodate me.

I remember when you warned me not to do things for you, lest you take me for granted

I remember how, watching you, asleep in the mornings, with the sunlight playing about your face, and tousling your morning hair, vowing silently to myself to do all I could, be all I could, for you.

I remember how you told me you would rather stay home with me, how you didn't enjoy the meaninglessness of clubbing; I remember releasing you to your friends because I could never want to cage someone whose independence and spirit I cherished.

*****
Perhaps the best things about you

Not that you were beautiful (to me), or gentle
Not your body, or those legs which are the stuff of men's fantasies
Not your wit or intelligence, which are apparent

But that you were considerate, and selfless, and kind

That you could look upon my kind - the whiter than white Pretenders - discern in them hypocrisy, selfishness, self-servitude, unfaithfulness, greed and deceit, and that you shied away from them

That you knew right from wrong, you had morals.
You were Good

broken

2008-06-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

i knew it was going to be a bad week when i was scheduled to present not one but two morbidities for tomorrow.

I prepared the cases over the weekend; nevermind that there were several amendments today; it was done by five.

The department secretaries chose to dump tomorrows pre and post op presentation on me tomorrow morning too by SMSing me that they were leaving me the thumb drive in my pigeon hole, somewhere around 11 am.

Not known entirely what this entailed, I thought I'd try to take it in my stride; today I was supposed to meet the other half after work to go shopping, and I'll admit this (sheepishly) - I was really looking forward to it.

I found out what it entailed around five thirty, after the day was over, when my registrar told me exactly what I needed to have prepared...

it was a lot more than I expected.

There was nothing for it but to grit my teeth and start preparing... what's so hard about filling in histology results and outcomes.... well it gets hard when there are about fifty of them to do.

I finished (triumphantly) around seven thirty and was getting ready to fly when the other MO on call told me I needed to create a list of the preops as well, so that when they ask to see the scans at random tomorrow I'll have it all ready.

How long could that possibly take?

Five minutes turned into ten, and then fifteen.

And then suddenly I was done, and suddenly it was seven fifty.

And then I got The SMS.

And suddenly everything was too late.

And suddenly, I am unforgiven.

I tried so hard. So god-damned hard. And I'm so very, very tired now.

So very tired.

*****
Why I didn't call? I thought I would make it on time, and call you and wake you up as I was driving over... the way we used to be. I hate waking you up... I know how much you treasure your sleep.

More fool me.

Unexpected

2008-04-26T02:28:00.000-07:00

the sudden warmth about his eyes caught him by surprise.
stupid. so very stupid.

he would have left earlier had he pre empted it. It is not... decent to let these things be witnessed.

and now it simply remains a matter of time...

I do not wish to venture in uninvited; nor wish to linger, unwanted.

I'll miss all of this, all of it. And especially You.

You, of course, will not do anything of the sort, and one of the new flames who doubtlessly messages you daily with the passion of youth and determination will administer you his gentle amnesiac of love.

Horse and Charriage

2008-04-23T02:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, hasn't it.
The Other Half has been egging me on to write for the longest time, till she tired of it and stopped. Somehow I've always found reasons not to write, not the least of all being the all- encompassing, all-consuming Final Examination.

I'm guessing she doesn't even check this blog anymore for updates; perhaps I've become too familiar to her, too much of a known entity. On some chinese serial on telly the other day two evil women opined that one must never open up too much in marriage, always preserve some mystique or else your partner will flutter away...... Then the "good" character opined that she believed in absolute trust, till of course the "twist". Chinese serials are all about twists and turns and very not-irony, really. Now she suspects her husband of cheating on her, for all that purported talk of trust. I bet the script writers really have a ball dreaming up which new unlikely and implausable plot device to employ next. That's what makes watching the serials so compelling, really. To see if you're one step ahead of the plot, or not.

Perhaps that's why Singaporean serials fail where hong kong ones shine - a lack of creative duplicity. Anyway, I digress.

I watched a peer yield to the forces of matrimony the other day. A peer not (just) because of his career, but because he was a blogger once too, and because of the way he wrote which I sort-of identified with.

They hadn't been going out for that long, just about two years methinks.

But leaving jokes about shotgun wielding in laws aside, he yielded - quite gracefully in truth, in a way that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand in an even mix of envy and sugar-overload - and watching him I felt a strange mix of happiness and sadness.

It was the perfect wedding - lavish, extravagent, flawless, and the happy couple and their families were - disgustingly radiant. Disgustingly. I couldn't help but smile - along with the thousands of other people who were there, I bet - for them. I almost wished I could have mounted the podium and waxed lyrical about the hope I had for them - which everyone else in the room doubtlessly, watching their forty five minute video (which was like being bludgeoned soundlessly to death with a six foot chocolate cake) and listening to love and marriage being like a horse and charriage... gah. And about a long time ago when I first made A's acquaintence, and how he had turned out to be a friend worth keeping.

It was so not the wedding I would ever wish upon myself. Laugh. But it suited them to a T.

I'm rather more low brow, or so I tell myself. Quiet, reserved. Happy without showing it. Perhaps I have taiwanese blood?

So whither marriage?

There're a million opinions out there, when and how, who and who not to marry, good boys, bad boys, good girls, bad girls, play around before marriage or settle down with the golden catch. It's enough to make your head spin.

Watch enough serials and talk to enough people and you'll have more than enough information to become - thoroughly confused. (kinda like studying for this stupid exam)

I remember running once, from L, when I woke up one morning so very comfortably in bed. Everything a comfortable haze, my mind in low gear for the last two years; I wrote about this once on my previous blog. It was like rising from the depths of a spongecake.
I was wasting her time, and mine - I didn't love her in the right way to marry her.

And then again, with P, when committment became a vague reality I realised how little right I had to waste someone else's time. How little right I had to waste the time of someone four years older... and by that dint (sigh how silly I was) "old" -- too old to be "playing" at couples setting up house.

If I had to peg a character type to myself, I would mark me a committment phobe.

Yet with G, and now with the current other half...

... have I changed?

A decade and a million thoughts later from the time I first opened my bleary eyes and felt stark awareness hit me in the face...

... I think perhaps I'm at the point where I don't know the answers anymore; I just know when I love someone enough to stay forever, and when I don't.

When infatuation fades and leaves us with (as the sermon the other day went) Agape love... is that Agape love right for you, or not?

The rest - about giving other people chances not to waste their lives... about security being the antithesis to love

... excuses. Just another way to say - I didn't love her enough.

I was selfish.

That's the way it goes.

A lack of truth

2007-12-15T15:29:00.000-08:00

Silence is not always golden.

If there's one thing that kills me a little.....

Sadness

2007-09-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

It's been one of those weeks.

My left gum's been acting up since monday. The fleshy bit just beyond my last molar where my wisdom tooth used to live.

Initially I didn't pay it much heed since I remembered I'd had my wisdoms extracted in NS. But there was an odd little bony prominence underlying the swelling which puzzled me, and I was reminded how I'd only had three wisdom teeth extracted previously because - according to the NS dental specialist - I only had three to extract.

As the week wore annoyingly on I somehow, for some reason became increasingly convinced that my mysteriously missing fourth wisdom tooth had appeared, and that the prominence I could feel was the corner of said tooth.

On thursday night my gum swelled quite dramatically. I found myself pressing instinctively on it - it hurt like hell, but it seemed to force the swelling down a little, although I felt rather feverish afterwards and my throat began to hurt. I also had a rather odd taste in the side of my mouth everytime I pressed, which I passed off as some form of sensory short circuit in my posterior tongue, or perhaps it was just the taste of my finger. My faltering medical mind decided that I had somehow managed to press away all the oedema.

On friday morning I was exhausted from all the pain, and although the swelling had subsided somewhat and the pain was less acute I sought help from a dentist. I'd meant to visit the dentist before work. Unfortunately it transpired that my shift wasn't 12 to 8 as I had imagined (why?!? why did I do that????) but eight to five.

NDC wasn't an option since they don't do walk-ins, and turning up to beg for help from a colleague just didn't seem right. And I only know a couple of them - what chance they would be around.

I arrived at my family dentist at eight only to discover that he was closed for a couple of days.
I briefly considered NUS but the thought of joining an A&E queue was far too daunting.

So I hopped into a taxi to head for Queenstown. That's when my phone rang and the bombshell dropped - I was already on shift. And the other guys were waiting for me to show up.
I felt - quite naturally - terrible. I rang back to offer to go back to work, and visit the dentist after work, but by then the damage was done. My consultant waved me away, having already recalled another MO to cover my absence and bade me sort out my tooth.

There are two dentists in Queenstown.
One doesn't put up his opening hours, and apparently opens late in the morning.

The other has his opening hours proudly displayed as 9.00 am.
Which has been crossed out in OHP marker and amended to 9.30 am.

9.30 am found me sitting on my bag (where I'd been the entire hour) reading my stupid surgical textbook. The receptionist showed up and told me that the sign may say 9.30 am, but doctor doesn't come in so early! He only comes at ten and probably won't be able to fit you in without an appointment! But nevermind, you wait.

So I waited. And wished I was a dentist.

Fortunately he did see me after all thanks to the first patient of the day being tardy.

Initially he thought I had a dental abscess, but after prodding it he thoughtfully said "hmm, it's bone" (which I'd told him...) and decided it was an unerupted wisdom tooth.

Much to our joint surprise, the OPG showed that I no longer had any wisdom teeth at all.

His final diagnosis was that it was a taurus - some form of bony spur - present in 5% of the population, and that my gum had become infected through minor trauma inflicted whilst eating, and now it was symptomatic and required surgical removal. One day MC, no painkillers (I guess that's what I get for being a doctor - the assumption that my bedside table is stocked with free goodies) and no antibiotics. (Because, he said, he wanted to start them after the operation on monday.)

I felt quite the fraud, to be honest. My pain was minimal, and the swelling mostly resolved. I wondered if the whole thing would settle down for good by sunday.

I've grown to dislike workig in A&E. I used to love it. In Singapore I dread going to work.
The largest part of it is how most - approximately eight out of ten - patients don't speak English.
Struggling through histories with my half-past six mandarin is screamingly frustrating, especially since the patients invariably say "huh?" the first time I ask them anything, neccessitating mindless repetition and doubling each consultation time.

There are other reasons work at A&E is driving me insane. I'll save them for a later post, suffice to say I have now been marked as a "bad" MO for slackness and insubordination, which try as I might, I can only dredge up three potential scenarios in which I disagreed with senior decisions but, in two cases bowed to seniority, and in the third rang a specialist colleague to confirm the proper course of action. Oh and the now-famous incident of the MO who Ate Outside the Department. Nevermind that I was three minutes away and completely ignorant of the ban, thanks to reservist committments obliterating my first week on the job. Once a sinner, always a sinner eh.

Yesterday evening my gum ballooned again. The pain was excruciating, so naturally my body told me to press on it again. I had the presence of mind to spit up this time and found that the nasty taste I'd been having in my mouth on pressing on my gum was actually pus.

Disgusting. A gingival abscess.
Cathartic too - the bacteremia I produced everytime I squashed on my gum must have been causing the fever, and the sore throat and lymphatic swelling. And hence the reduction in swelling after I pressed each time.

I'd been feeling a bit bad about the MC I was about to take post-procedure, since I'm told by T my peridontal friend that in essence I'm having another wisdom tooth op, only instead of having a tooth extracted I'm having a bone filed down, and be prepared to suffer for a week and be on MC flat on my back in pain at home.
I'd meant to take three days out of the seven, but after my little "warning" yesterday evening for my perceived transgressions, coupled with sheer exhaustion of working through this stupid toothache, I find myself rather looking forward to this little respite.

Bitter? Me?
It must be the fever.

Wait till I start ranting about all the things in A&E that have driving me nuts... and the said cases of insubordination that I just have to bear silently at work as my cross - the lowly MO who Spoke Out of Turn. Sigh.

Actually, Love

2007-07-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, M (the nurse) MSN messaged me .

It's been a long while since we've conversed, and I wondered what she needed now, or what new crisis had cropped up to trigger this occurrence.

That's the nature of our "friendship" - if you can call it even that. I see her clearly now for what she is, a "user". Cynical, cynical me.
And I wonder what on earth I ever saw in her. Rusty - you were right, if you ever read this. Good old' rusty, agony aunt and celebrity friend all in one.

Somehow, in between long pauses while I surfed the web on ways to get X-com 3 to work on windows XP, and she doubtlessly continued getting chatted up by a million guys (such is the fate of pretty young females; I am resigned to it. Even my Other Half , the Peddler indulges in it, methinks...) the topic got round to my exams. After it had wandered around her wanting to go on holiday, and how scary it is for a girl to travel alone like she has been doing, because, boohoo, all sorts of angmoh strangers try to get to know her and ask her to go to their rooms, or ask to go to hers... tough life, pat pat. you poor dear...

"So when u going for exams, will it be in the UK?"

I wonder when the hammer is going to fall.

"I was thinking of tagging along..."

Ah.
Blink.
Subtle.

After a pause, I reply rather deliberately - if I was going to bring someone with me, it would be my other half... (and by implication, not you.)

I guess she doesn't know about the other half - thats how infrequently she messages me, and I never bother to initiate conversations with her. Just maintain a civil front; it would be rude to block her from MSN, no?

A longer pause this time.

She doesn't begin by asking about the other half, oh no. No niceties here.

"then I shouldn't come along ba, wouldn't want your gf to get the wrong idea..."

WTF is this? IS SHE FOR REAL?
Let me weigh my options. I think I am supposed to say no, come along, come along, here I pay for you? Or... perhaps I'm supposed to write that I'll take her and not my other half, and have a sordid sex holiday with her, since she's offering. Oh, oh. I know, I'll ask her to come along in secret, and bonk her when the other half's back is turned!
Wow. Incredible, I can actually make out the thought processes she's banking on my Y chromosome to lead me down.

Roll eyes.

"no. you shouldn't. I don't want my gf to get the wrong idea."

Unspoken : I love her. And she's 800... no, eight million times the woman you will never be, trapped in your juvenile teenagehood as you are. I would never do anything to jeapordize what I have with her. Run along now and find some fool to manipulate - I shall not be that fool.

M finally asks me about the other half -- not what she looks like, or even what she's like as a person, oh no. It's all about what she does and how we met.

I tell her repeatedly that I can't tell her, and she demands to know why I'm being secretive - at first she assumes I'm bound to silence, and says it's usually because the girl has someone else. And when she realises I'M the one who won't talk she badgers me incessantly, rather inconveniencing my web browsing.

I tell her to stop asking.
(Unspoken : I can't tell you because I don't want any harm to come to her, or her job. And I can't tell you even this, because then you'll seek out the answers more.)

In the end I tell her that I have to go and study, goodbye.

Some time later, she messages me "I realli miss the old times when we could talk freely about anything"

I think back... how long ago was that? Two years? Two and a half? During the time we were just getting to know each other? And how long did that last? A week?
I don't miss those times. I know who you are now, M.

*****
In the rest of this post (in time to come):

And about somethings that happened rather long ago, that resulted in the death of this blog.

And about The One - past, present, and future.

And about how time changes us.

Unfortunately, I have all of three minutes to write it. So for now, it shall remain buried in the haphazard depths of my mind.

I won't be blogging much, I don't expect. I have found peace, and I want to cherish every moment of this peace that I have been Given, and that has been shared with me. Even should I - should I be so lucky - somehow manage to keep this peace, and this remarkable person - for it is always really about a person, is it not? - by my side through this entire lifetime... I wish never to take it, and her for granted, and to cherish her, and us all our living days.

Lessons learnt from a stormy and dysfunctional past.

*****

I used to write primarily for myself, and for the latent audience of friends that knew me well. I didn't really write much for the faceless strangers that chanced by this blog, but it was gratifying, of course, to be paid compliments about the way I write.

I have lost my readership now; this blog was dead, then replaced, and now is completely unknown.

I begin anew; a clean slate. I write - for myself.

Re-minisce, remember all these words when you are older, and pray that you may still be smiling as you read them, the way you were when you wrote.

I live, again.

2007-07-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

But for now, I sleep.

as much as I can, preferably.