It’s a new thing to me, sending my car for servicing. Having no car before. The only previous experience I had was  accompanying my father to the Toyota service centre in Seremban.

It’s a weird thing to do, being here at the Perodua Service Center on a Saturday. Normally I would have probably be in bed or watch whatever was on  tv. The service center only opens until 12.30pm on Saturdays and that’s the only time most people. That stands to reason why why I have to wait now.

I arrived at 8.45 whereas the service center open their doors at 8.30 which is the time I think most of the people ahead of me was at the gates. Only being 15 minutes and I was looking at a full room of people already waiting for their car to be serviced.

The tv was loud in the waiting room, showing a raya special hosted by Aznil. I guessed it must have been last year’s at the least, for among the guest was Din Beramboi who died recently earlier in the year due to Haemorrhaging Dengue (or what I call it Bloody Dengue).

It’s weird being in a room of people where if they were not being nose deep reading their newspaper or staring out somewhere or at particular thing, there were smiling in a wide grin or tittering watching a recently died man making impromptu jokes on the tv.

Nobody ever talks in the waiting room except with people they have brought along. Maybe because the others came in different cars.

while writing this, I heard the service advisor call out my car-plate number, or I thought he did because when I got up, someone else also got up. When he got to a service advisor, he confirmed his car number that have the same beginning two digits as mine.

To cover for my awkwardness I returned my left  earbud to  my ear and deliberately picked something up from the magazine rack. I picked up ‘estidotmy’, a glossy newspaper supplement jointly produced by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation or Mosti, it’s cute abbreviation.

I was still standing at the magazine rack when I heard a service advisor, the one that took my car from the parking lot into the service area, call out my car number, no mistake. Maybe I did correctly heard my number just now or maybe I did not. I just felt awkward.

I sat at the chair in front of him, glossy supplement aimed at children and early teens  in hand. The advisor explained to me that my brake cable was loose was the reason for the knocking sound that I said to him I never noticed before. He said that it would needed to be ‘greased’, which I had not expecting. I asked how much that was. He said fifteen ringgit much to my relief. Then he said that the mechanic in charge of my car said that the my car battery was at the end of it’s life. Straight away I asked how much was it. he blurted out, “One hundred fifty” or was it “One hundred fifteen”? I am not sure now. But I think it was my stern face and item by item questioning of prices that made the advisor uncomfortable. Or was it the knowledge that he was ripping me off? Only he would know.

Then I gave my agreement to the advisor, much to his apparent relief.

I sat back to one of the couches in the waiting area and proceeded to leaf through that glossy supplement, finding that, much to my disappointment, it’s quality has dropped significantly since I last read it about five years ago. Basic run through revealed an article in English which was titled, really,  ’Natural Rubber can protect structures from quakes earth’.

Disappointed, I lost all interest reading the glossy supplement and leafed through quickly to the back. Revealing some short articles that was designed beautifully but ultimately was hollow and uninteresting.

Then, there was a movie on the tv. A Senario movie, I forgot whether in was the second or the third, It was the one with the trip  to the east coast. Thirty minutes through the movie, everybody’s eyes in the room showed noticable sleepiness. I find myself joining their collective drowsiness and noticing that it was my second hour here.

I guess I need to take a walk.

p/s the car now  rides like a dream

without really realizing it, i’m already nearing my third year into this experiment of mine. with this rented room, free electricity and free internet from the indian restaurant across the road. with the jobs that i have now, i make enough for rent, food and other knick knacks.

but still there’s that itch there to leave it all. again just to leave and go. like what i did when this exercise in isolation started.
i think it comes with the amount of free time that i have, i just can’t stop that most human of traits, self-reflection.

i am sick with what i am now. i am just a parasite. taking advantage of this scabrous excuse of a civilization. i am now, i realize, just as willing a participant as any other when i work for some faceless logo, stacking items on shelves at the 24-hour convenience store, cleaning toilets at the shopping mall, collecting cans and old newspaper for the odd cash. making things neat for people to exploit others, to exploit themselves. I am being exploited by indirect ways.

that is the trap of civilization, i realize. first humans were unthinking animals, doing things just to survive, to feed the human animal goes and find food, to breed the human animal would capture a mate. actually that is an area that interest me very much as a person that has the time to think. when that unthinking human animal breed, did it have lust? it is hard to imagine lust without imagination. maybe observations of cats in heat would help us understand so, just have to make sure nobody is watching you observe cats fucking, what a pervert.

then communities come to being, a collection of humans just shedding their animalness cooperating for the benefit of the collection themselves. maybe when humans were still human animals we were already in a community, who knows really? to get back to the subject, within a community of humans there would always be an oppressor, exploiting others within the group to submit to his will. with strength or intelligence he would not need anymore to look for food, others do it for him. he need not capture a mate by his own, the female of the community would of course choose him over the submissive members of this tribe, the female that belongs to the oppressor would of course be treated like him eventhough she is herself being exploited. That double helixed molecule within every cell of living thing again, making it’s presence known with it’s continuous struggle for immortality even if it would have to discard fifty percent of it information to be traded with the information from another half of another molecule from another living being.

there i go again, looking at things from that angle. therein lies madness.

i tried to follow the advice of a wise man who said to be really happy, contented happy. one should: have friends that are close, have some money but not too much, time for self-reflection. i know that i have achieved two of the criteria. except the part about friends, now for me that is a hard thing to manage.

i have trouble socializing since i could remember, my parents worked on a farm, the owner gave them permission to build a shack on an unused patch of land near the forest. as a result of this, i had no contact whatsoever with other people other than my parents. my parents would not even let me know the farm owner who they said likes young boys. back then i was confused by this, isn’t it good then for me to be friends with the owner, i wondered out loud whenever the topic came up. then one day while helping father feed the goats i saw the owner’s land rover drive up the muddy dirt road to his farmhouse. when the land rover stopped i saw that he was not alone, with him was two people, one of his many young friends, this one in particular had a limp right hand that was atrophied and a boy who looked just turned thirteen. long story short, the boy ran away before anything could have happened. then was when i understood father’s warning in it’s fullest.

that ends my log today, i’m too tired to continue and sleep has cast it’s net over my consciousness and i am barely awake. again this is another demonstration of that advice my father gave me years ago on that farm. to have the best meal, the best spice is hunger and to have the best sleep, the best blanket is a full day’s sweat and toil.

———————————————————
…
day 4000 since the forgetting

it is the rainy season again and the provision i have made during the easy months are adequate and i hope that i would not again have to suffer the terrible hunger that i think prompted the forgetting 4000 days ago.

today i found a chest buried on the northern end of the island and in it among other things was a typewriter with spare ribbons and a few reams of paper, which is the reason why the journal you are reading now is nice for a change and not the normal found cardboard and squid ink. the typewriter looks well-worn and can not type capital letter but other than that it’s okay.

also in the chest i found a thick pile of paper about 15 centimetres thick, that apparently was written using this typewriter too. cursory reading of the first few yellowing pages reveals a young man writing his thoughts about his life in a city which he does not name.

i think this is what i’m going to read this rainy season which is good because i guess i can already memorize all the books i currently have.

The footage is actually of Jack Hargreaves, of BBC’s Out of Town. The original video probably had felt like this:

Enjoy!

he wrote, in his notebook with pieces of charcoal taken from the embers of his still burning car.

he stopped writing, took out all his money and one by one put the paper notes into the flames and watched them flash, curl and turn to ash.

inspired by a scene in ‘Into The Wild’

p/s he was wearing ankle length black leather shoes with loose brown socks.

No information was available, just Random data, but I know it’s my birthday.

The shadows we leave behind use use to hide from the light.

Waiting In The Light.

Deco Over Here, Deco Over There, but the illegal and handmade pleases my aesthetics more.

A Drink Before Destination, going through repetition and straight lines.

Newspaper Is More Interesting, news from the remote unseen is easily tolerated than the suffering near us.

The Stains Of The City, people flow through the city leaving only their dirt and stains.

The Barriers We Put, easily sidestepped by others.

Blue Repetition. guy in the middle tries not to get into frame but I wanted him to, I win.

Confidence and The Golden Tower, yakin boleh!

Clock/Sunrise/Expletive Slogan, necessary evil? slogan does not fit into picture. sunrise and time is much more sublime.

Waiting For Teksi

Step Into The Light/Shadow, lines, shades and gradients

STEP, SHADOWS GETS LONGER, incidental gnomons.

LOVE Thy Tummy/Train/Blue Tower

What’s for breakfast but disappointment, I had a coupon for free coffee expiry-dated on that day but the coffee machine broke down.

<SOME BORING WORK HERE>

and then,

Taking Flight, somewhere in Little India.

Restoran Kader, where I had lunch.

BLR with Kohli Verval(sp?), Banana Leaf Rice.

Red Puffs, hope it made your day.

Trio Cross Street, red, green, yellow on yellow stripes.

Tea time treat, a kind soul in the office remembered my birthday.

Rainy Wait, but where was I?

Finally! Everything is in it’s right place.

(reblogged from http://leo.tumblr.com/post/8070500/stool-for-men-from-donalds-blogg)

and bonus for you guys that are uninterested to read my bus-ride-shaken scrawls.