Hunny I Blew Up Myself

Dear Ti Rak,

My meetings today lasted longer than I expected. I was already late when I stepped into the assessment room to get my physical examinations done. At the beginning, everything seemed to look strangely smooth and normal about me. Nothing was to worry about.

It started with the blood pressure exam which was found to be normal. Though it was a bit towards the maximum normal limit since I was hastening to this place. Secondly, my oxygen intake after the tread-mill fit test seemed to be even better than average people. The caliper however almost showed no mercy. A bit of fat on the back and a lot (I mean a lot!) of bulge at the waistline. The only good news was that minimum fatty compound could be observed from my biceps and triceps. Yay!

Further into the exam, the flexibility test produced another alerting warning. The consultant said that my flexibility level was next to a log. She recommended me to tune into more yoga classes after this. But how do you suppose to bring your spirit to yoga dreamland when not too long ago someone just successfully re-christened you with the nick, Mr. Stiff Log?

Moving on to the scales was like forcing myself to watch Jelangkung (local horror flick) all over again. The well-expected result was frighteningly high at 39.8% body fat content. You know that’s almost 30 kg of fat hanging onto my voluptuous physique on a day-to-day basis?

Went here and there on several gym equipments afterward, she measured my maximum lifts at this starting point. When the assessment was done thirty minutes later, she helped me design a personalized training program. This she said, should take about 10% off that fat storage of mine into better use in a three month interval. If, I follow the instructions dutifully. And that was of course a very big If. You know me and my midnight cravings lah.

I then killed another hour by doing some routines on my regimens. Relaxing a bit after that. Took a shower cheerily before a fashion tragedy finally occurred: I was packing this nice shirt in which I hadn’t worn in about a year or so. To my horror, the shirt, the only clean thing that I had at the moment, didn’t fit me very well. It was way too small for me to wear in my current size. I was so agitated by the embarrassments that followed. On the way out, it seemed that everyone was just looking at how tight my shirt was. Of course I do realize that I have a nice set of deltoids and a trapezium shoulder to watch for. But my waistline was bulging at the seams and the buttons almost burst from their rightful places. Facing more embarrassments, I then ran to the nearest mall. I then got meself a new shirt that fit (nicely) and more importantly, I regained my self-confident from the ultimate fashion disaster. Thank God that the fashion police himself, Roberto Verdi wasn’t there to give me any ticket for dressing unlawfully.

So darling, I know how you love me just the way I am. How you felt cuddly in my warm hugs. How my one-big-pack (of belly) excites you even better. But today’s experience was pretty scary for me. The not so impressive results of the test and the public humiliations might prove to be too much for me. Let me do a right thing for once.

For my sake, for my health. I need to do some more hard-core training.

I know you’d understand Yang.
Missed you in my bed last night…

Can’t wait to see you soon babe!

Love,
Your Kuma.

Brunch of Provenance

Did you ever forget about your roots once and again? Living in the city can sometimes lose you into this pulsing and vibrating over-drive that made the city of Jakarta alive and well-oiled. Not only that it was the norm but also it was almost seemingly mandatory to take part of the available lifestyle to feel belong to the city. It was either you are in or you are out: Sometimes people will do anything to belong somewhere.

People change their hair-do-s, their outfits, their addresses, their behaviors, and even their friends in search of a place to belong. Last weekend however, I found it rather cute tracing back my root only to find a very comfortable zone that was long forgotten.

The place was called Angke, the restaurant. Nestled in a shop-house jungle in Ketapang Street near Gajah Mada, for ages it was known as one of the places to celebrate anything significant. Be it birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, anything that worth celebrating back in the days when Gajah Mada Plaza* was the only cool place to go.

Thirty past eleven we took two of the round tables (of course with the helpful lazy-Susan in the middle) and commenced my grandma’s birthday brunch. Of course it wasn’t my idea to hold the event over there, where traffic congested the narrow streets and parking was next to impossible. My uncle, or her son-in-law to be precise, had this great imagination to dine in the perfect place for such celebration.

The elders gathered themselves at the table next to us, while we -the kids- sat together to mingle with long-lost cousins. It was kinda cute to see them all together with the shy girlfriends and do-I-have-to-be-here looking boyfriends to barter our how-do-you-do-s across the table. At that moment, I really wish that I could bring my boyfriend and introduced him to my relatives. Secretly hoping that they all would be okay with this.

Food however was abundant, the types I haven’t seen in a long time. The types in which supposed to be hailed as some luxury treat for your tongue. The true special party-mix which you should not consume as everyday food. I couldn’t even spell the rightful dish names even if I wanted to. To my eyes they were a shark-fin look-alike soup, the birthday fried noodles, sweet and sour pork, somekinda drunken fried prawn, sautéed water crest and topped with unagi-like crispy fried eels on a bed of green vegetables.

For somebody who can actually cook, I wonder why did people flock to the establishment? The food was so so, nothing special. Furthermore, the MSG show of force even gave me instant muscle-knots on my shoulder blades and a manageable diarrhea later on. And for the final bill that my uncle had to pick up, he could certainly go to a more modern Chinese establishment with a lot more interesting culinary offerings in a glitzier part of the town.

Bored with the conversations, I started to observe the place and wrote this onto my brother’s PDA phone: Everyone seemed to put on his or her Sunday dresses and outfits. Since it was a Sunday, maybe they just came from their places of worships with their families. Affluent looking ladies with big hairs and European handbags (not sure if they were real though, the hair and the bag!); gentlemen wearing polo shirts that would suit the putting greens very well; obviously westernized teenagers who were tuning into their iPods or speaking in English than whatever mother-tongue lingua-franca available in the region; Hot looking engkoh-engkoh (nick for older brother or older male) with their trophy girlfriends. “Why are these people here?”, I asked myself. If they can afford the hefty price tag at the Angke, they can have brunch of their choice absolutely anywhere. Maybe the exact question may even seem absurd to them. Where else would they celebrate family togetherness in Jakarta?

If I feel that the place I should belong is in the South (part of Jakarta), I certainly forgot that I came from the West. Because originally the West is where Chinese people work, shop, eat, and relax. And at the end of the week, this is where people got enjoy their family too. This is the place to see and be seen, where some people show that they had finally made it.

All around the Angke smiles, laughter, and great conversations filled the atmosphere.

Happy Birthday Oma.

Even with the gastronomic misadventure,
it still felt good to be home.

*) In the 1980-s, do you remember your first chocolate chip cookies at Famous Amous, your first bite of rubbery mozzarella from Pizza Hut, your first wiener schnitzel at Glossis, the little shop that sold latex Smurf figurines, the pet shop that you’d spend hours hoping that your parents would get you some? The heyday of Gajah Mada Plaza.

Celestial Workout

I don’t know why I am complaining so much about this particular subject. If you like hot looking guys so much. You shouldn’t complain if you’re surrounded by thousands of them. Seducing and gazing like some lions on a meekly gazelle prancing on the African savannah (that would be me!), they were all ready for some action. Hmm, sweaty bodies everywhere. Showing off to get appreciations from passers-by. Wow, it should feel like you’re in heaven where seemingly the entire homo-binan-sis species seemed to flock around a single watering-hole day by day. It should if you’re in Babylon or One-oh-Seven!

Again, it might just be me or I felt like the world had gone mad. I was talking about nothing else but my gym. Smack bang boom in the exact center of the city, lately it had became a sort of pseudo-paradise for men watching, men gathering, men hook-ups, men pick-ups, and even yes, men to men actions. Anyone should fit any market there. There are the cutie pies from the next-door university, yuppies who have excellent taste in shoes, clothing and carry-ons, businesspersons who have to flaunt three or four cell-phones. Slim ones, fat ones, beefy ones, gargantuan muscled ones, pretty ones, ugly ones, manly ones, sissified ones, you name it. They were all there for your enjoyment.

In marketing terms I would be categorized as the first-trial-suckers. Any company who’d launch a new glitzy campaign would love me because I have a minimum loyalty in a brand and would try any new product instantly as long as it fit my needs (or wants) in any way imaginable. Back then, the trend in the earlier part of the millennium was to join a gym inside a mall. Not only that it was trendy and socially acceptable, it was also a kind of a status recognition for many yuppies who couldn’t afford the country clubs or the higher-end health clubs at five-star hotels yet. Not unpredictably, so many Batavians in the middle-up strata were attracted to this. The true reunion melting pot it was, I met so many of my old friends from highschool and college there. Even my entire extended family were seen there on and off with their friends and colleagues. I felt suffocated. Practically everyone I knew was there. And they choked me even further when I learned that it was so complicated and costly to discontinue the membership there. Biatch!

Moving to another gym (still yet in a another shopping-mall), I found this place to be more relaxing, less patronized by stuck-up aristocraties or socialites, and thankfully less family members! It was also pretty exclusive with the tag-price that they invented; yet it felt more cool, more airy and less pretentious. As a noted first-trial-sucker, I was a member even before the place was inaugurated. Results were good: I lost about 10 kgs in the first quarter, and better, some of my close friends even decided to join me there as well. It was a three-storey complex with hundreds of quality equipments that worked well. Life was sweet.

However, yet another year later the suffocation came along once more. The place was so packed with people even in odd hours such as lunch time and happy hours. More and more people joined this altar of (body) worship. The managements were more than happy to sign on hundreds of new customers each month and started to think less of the operation itself. Many repairs were done untimely on the equipments. You would see molds on the ceramic walls and the ceilings of the shower area. I didn’t even want to imagine what germs and std-s that would creep beneath the seats of the steam and sauna chambers.

Finding a new haven, the local gays started to be more and more bold. Totally naked bodies catwalking and going to and fro in the locker area. The days of “Hey; How are you?; May I get to know you better?” were long gone and replaced with the dropping-off towels in front of you. Lisping voices on the phones with a dash of high notes hit the ambiance. Locking their gazes, smirking in predatory instinct, phone numbers were being exchanged so copiously. It was and still is a cotton-candy land for some people, all were sweet and satisfying. The notorious sauna would bear as a silent witness of many public lewd acts and carnal behavior at certain times of the day. It was so notorious, its sauna paradiso recently was named as one of the most recommended making-out places in public in one of those homo-binan-sis mailing lists.

I thought that was all too much for me. Engga banget deh! So lazy to even enter the premises, I then frequented the gym less and less and culminated another extra 5 kgs around my waist recently. The final point of no return was when I heard a horrific story from the gym’s former marketer. He said, “Did you know, that every marketer has to produce no less then 40 new members each month going into the gym? Imagine if you have 15 marketers?”. I let out a gasp and replied, “Oh… My… God! That would be approximately around 600 new members per-month? No wonder the place got so packed!”. And he continued, “But that’s not all, the membership fee had became less and less lately, you could even get a corporate rate for around US $17/ month”.

That’s where I lost my temper. Resign I did from that horrible money-sucking mega complex. When you are selling the concept of exclusivity, what would be a major draw-back for a client who paid well (above the mentioned figure) for that? Of course the notion of easy access to accommodate just about anyone to hop on board will churn his/ her stomach upside down.

Now my training days reside in a more beautiful place, outside from the mall (though of course not too far away, I still need the comfort zone). It was smaller yet sparingly decorated in modern-minimalist style. Serenity and guaranteed limited membership are like beautiful chants to my delicate ears. It also doesn’t hurt when the trainer ratio per member is about 4:1. Especially when they were all hand-picked by queer-eyes for the err, straight holistic makeover. Yes dahlengs, they all look like models, beefy ones of course, not the skinny types for the fashion shoots. If the same class would host 40 people in the old gym, now imagine having a private one-on-one yoga class with a very cute, flexible (and bendable!) instructor. Hmm. Suddenly I felt thirsty.

All good things come in due time.
Losing weight again, gaining mass again, reshaping again.
This is what I call my celestial workout.

The Addams Family

If you could pinpoint a very extraordinarily eccentric person in your extended family, you should consider yourself lucky there. In my case, (counting here), I have at least three of them. That’s not even counting crazy-old me. But if I have to push it further, better yet, the three of them actually reside under one roof. Yes, they are my Uncle Gomez, my Aunt Morticia, and my explosive cousin, Wednesday… (You may insert creepy soundtrack here).

It all began when Uncle Gomez and Aunt Morticia met each other at my mum n dad’s wedding party. Innocently enough they fell madly in love with each other and decided to get married in another year. She was a playgirl, my aunt, before she then decided her mind on the very hardworking Uncle Gomez. At the beginning, they were all cute and cuddly. Oh yes, that was until my aunt -bored enough with her house chores- came to a decision to move an air-conditioner unit (window-hanging type) by herself. I did fail to mention that she was 8 months in her pregnancy when that happened, didn’t I? As you predicted they had a miscarriage of a boy, who would dotingly be called Pugsley Addams. Tried and tried again they did to conceive another heir. Alas, she –who’d never satisfied with any maid’s work, thus had to perform the housechores herself- had another miscarriage the next year.

She was stricken by anger and desperations that when she actually conceived Wednesday my cousin, she thought she was carrying a baby boy. So when finally Wednesday arrived in this cruel-cruel world, Aunt Morticia flipped and decided to raise her like a boy. Uncle Gomez didn’t do anything about this, he was so happy teaching Wednesday the art of playing toy-cars and toy-soldiers, consequently the word Barbie had never crossed Wednesday’s mind when she was a youngster. A total tomboy she became.

As a closeted queen in the family, of course she was an equivalent to a thorn poking on my eyes: A baby cousin who I couldn’t dress-up as princess and play castles with she was. Almost like having another younger brother at the end of the day. The situation worsened when Grandmama Addams thought that other little girls were just pesky little nuisances. Wednesday was stuck with us, was one of us, we forgot that inside she was still a little girl. Then she received her first period and her bosoms had grown regally like the trademarks of the other Addams women. She wasn’t allowed to go into the kitchen. She wasn’t allowed to date boys. She wasn’t allowed to touch makeups,

Fast-forwarding about a decade or so later, today Wednesday is around 26, looks and acts like 15, bad at socializing, doesn’t have any local friend –all the people she acquainted live in Hogwarts, her alma-mater-. By the way, did you know that she quitted her jobs faster than any computer graphic designer could in masking the obvious-bulges of Brandon Routh’s red undies in Superman Returns? No boss could tolerate her non-existent anger management program at any rate.

One day, Uncle Gomez and Aunt Morticia was worried about her future. So they decided to ask me help them in building her a grave-digging company, an activity she seemed to enjoy very much. Just invest a little that’s all, said Uncle Gomez. It so happened that they actually picked up customers faster than I thought it would. Glad that I had my little ownership there. But with her personality, one by one, her staffs left Wednesday because they couldn’t work under her. A monstrous personality with a decidedly unpredictable time-bomb upshot waiting to explode, they said. All was created and intensified by living under the Addams’ roof: an uber obsessive-compulsive mother who would conjure ugly-lies about her in-laws matched with a lack of control father. Heck, for all I care, Wednesday could or should already be a lesbian by now. (Hmm).

When Uncle Gomez and Aunt Morticia kept on fighting-hard at home, Wednesday opted to stay overnight at her office ever so frequently. And blasted the office the next day she always did for no apparent reason. Last week I called her upon a meeting to discuss her erratic behaviors and their effects towards the company. She became more frigid and agitated afterwards, not as I usually predicted.

Aunt Morticia then had to push her further by leaving notes at her windshield wiper. You know, regular love letters from a mom to a daughter such as: “If my presence is so unwelcome by you, I will leave your sight so far away”. Until one day, Wednesday called me in panic, this was what Aunt Mortie sent her in the form of an sms: “Goodbye darling, I am leaving you for good”.

With that note I sped up to their residence up on the hills leaving all my works and meetings behind. Panting only to find out that not only she was doing fine, she was also doing her hairs with curling irons while waiting for her nail polish to dry. I should kill her there. For being the drama-queen that she was. What if Wednesday -another drama-princess in the making- decided to slam her carriage into the highway separator because she was sick of everything around her? Did Aunt Morticia ever regret anything? I’m sorry, I didn’t think she was capable of doing that. The next day, Wednesday blasted the entire office again with a vengeance.

Yesterday, when Cousin Itt got fed up with Wednesday, he resigned immediately. When I got the call to fix the problems (again), I decided not to side with anyone. Let Itt had his way if he wanted to. This time I was tired of fixing problems. I went to Wall Street instead. With all my might I called my broker and bought all her shares in the listed company. And today, this I said to her: “Goodbye Cousin Wednesday, you’re fired! And I don’t give a damn anymore about you and your little pathetic life you have here. I am so fuckin’ tired already…”