Stranger things have happened

I was just standing there, in a pub, Friday night, with a pint in one hand and no excuse in the other as to why I'm at a farewell of people I haven't even met until this night. I don't ask a lot of questions; not out loud at least.

The real reason was to have a drink and to watch and observe--people; to just lounge about, and get into the whole feel of this pub-going, crowd-gathering, glass-holding society. It was sick, cultural, unnerving, colourful, fun and beautiful, all at once--like a poem. Or a pub.

The more real reason is so that I can write you more amusing and anecdotal entries while laying in this uncomfortable sit-up position, in the dark listening to Travis - The Man Who album, not being able to catch a break from trouble sleeping. Don't you dare ask me for pictures in this dark heap of madness and questionable taste!

A welsh man of a tall and sizable nature came up to (the four of) us earlier. Initially, Doreen was caught by surprise by this man standing 1-2 feet to the side of her, body tilted slightly (head likewise) at her direction. Puzzling was this as no one knew why this man stood there till he explained in a faintly tipsy manner that he was looking for a friend. I surmised this by the size of his opened eyes and a smile that seems to follow every cheerful disposition to drinking aplenty.

All I know is that either these girls have this happen to them every weekend or never have this happen at all. This is evident (but not evident enough for me to draw a conclusion) by the way Doreen said "Okeyyyy.." It was in a disbelieving indifferent tone. I received this treatment before as an experience to make a guess. It's rude and sometimes amusing from both perspectives.

Welsh Man walks up between me and John, puts his arms on our shoulders muttering something facing John while Doreen and Maria watched. John asks "Having a good night?" to a yes sort of answer. Following this he turns his head to me and I'm smiling in an approving/agreeable manner while the two girls continue watching. Yes Giant, gooooddd Giant. I'm wondering what the Giant really wants aside from conversation. He looks back at John saying something else and the two girls are just standing there waiting for the next thing to happen. It felt like tennis and the Giant was that man that sits in the middle watching the ball from court to court and the girls were making it more so by being the spectators.

And sure enough, he turns to my direction again. Having had enough of this, I smile ear to ear and utter "I don't have anything to say..." I think everyone found that funny except the Welsh Man, who said "I can sense the doubt in me, here." Of course, seeing that no one wanted to entertain the guy, I stepped in and made conversation. I was hoping someone else would pick up the slack--that usually happens.

How I came to know he was Welsh and looking for his friend (Steve) is another story. The truth is I don't even think he was looking for his friend. Steve is quite a general name. He had a drunk pasted face just standing there. You know, the kind that just looks superimposed and has little expression by how little it changes.

He wasn't the first one, tonight. The moment I stepped out of the car, "There you go..." I was greeted drunkenly on the street outside another pub, waving. I wave back, with that stupid puzzled look on my face as before in the Welsh Man chronicle. I hear a muffled "High Five" and turn to see that he wants a high five now, and so I gave him one. That high five changed into some weird hand shake with the twisting and gripping and [you name it]!! Fuck this I thought, breaking the handshake in a surrendering look hoping that he would take that as me being done on my half; I even threw in a friendly wave and smile at the end.

Right in front of where we parked, a pub, with a high five-ing white guy with the famous drink-in-hand look that I seem to carry everywhere I go being turned against me. A conspiracy, damn you! I don't know anymore. I can't even guess on whether he was making fun of me or drunk or both.

"Would anything happen to our car contingent of how I shook his hand?"

"Did I do it right?"

"Was he going to thrash our car because of my mistaken secret Aoteroa handshake?"

"I should have done it better and now it's too late!"

I was nervous. Drunk people can do anything, and usually will. The thought of coming back to windowless car. I felt, at this point, the feeling that people usually have after an exam paper they were under prepared for--that only the results will tell and nothing you do will ever change the mark handed to you.

Fetch

I saw footage of a dog owner who trained her doggy to fetch her a cold beer from the fridge. The only flaw is that the fridge door remains open. It's not a novel idea but it's the first time I've seen it--Impressive.

That's Animal Planet for you

A mother wolf carries a pup in its mouth. The pup is dead. She takes her pup into the bush and starts eating it. She didn't kill the pup for it died of starvation. Another pup comes along, also suffering from starvation. It needs to eat, so the mother wolf regurgitates its dead brother for the pup to feed on.

I'm watching Animal Planet. It's depressive sometimes.

Weather

Most nights, you cannot see a cloud in sight. Stars everywhere, moon in clear view, moonlight on everything. The clouds you see at night are illuminated by the moon. Something about it that will tell you that you're not in Kansas anymore, except that it's Kansas was KL.

When it rains here, you will hardly hear thunder. That's not how it goes down here, for some geographical reason. I should be researching the reason why this is for you, but not this time.

An exercise in self-amusement

The theme was "white," in that you had to wear white to this birthday party. The big 3-0 of Lawrence (Malaysian). Lawrence is an old friend of my brother. He was here since the last time I was here: 4 years or more ago. He'd used to come over to play mahjong with his girlfriend Susan. He doesn't anymore.

We were headed to Galatos. Galatos is a bar/club place off K. Road. It consisted of a stage and tables downstairs and another hall upstairs overviewing the stage and tables below. We were the upstairs party.

The area upstairs is a very dimly-lit, large living room-esque hall with a bar in the corner and three large couches with a big coffee table in the centre. Hanging above were those blue lights that make your white shirts glow and occasionally your teeth, too. My teeth didn't.

An hour in to the party and I haven't seen anyone I knew. It took a good two hours for someone I recognised to arrive. By this time I was immensely bored, but that's how I get everywhere I go, so I just go with it--and two hours is a long time, dear.

In the time which I was waiting, I managed to make friends, though not many, but that's because I never know if I'm ever going to see the person I meet ever again. In retrospect, it is probably why I don't remember names of many people. Note to self: Remember more names. Of many people.

I met this couple: Peter (Chinese) and girlfriend (Chinese). It appears that Peter didn't know anyone else except Lawrence at this party. Had I not said hello and introduced myself, they would have been sitting next to me for hours staring at glowing white shirts all over. Ghosts! However, sadly to say, I was getting tired of the icebreaker conversation and left to the bathroom to reposition myself somewhere else--I did feel guilty leaving him there, though that changes nothing.

I also met a Gavin, an engineer who works with Ivy. First: Ivy was a girl that shared the birthday with Lawrence. They had decided to celebrate their birthdays together; which should explain to you by now that when we arrived, the place was full of her friends. It was 20 to 4 to Ivy's advantage. And so I recognised no one.

Gavin (Malaysian) is a chatty person. This amused me somewhat because we would have an amusing conversation later.

Gavin was a thin guy, a head taller than I am, speaks with a bit of an accent because I could see through the accent to the broken English beneath. Through my observations, Asians add "Eh/Aye?" behind their sentences a lot here to blend in. Gavin was no exception. You understand this to be an impersonation, aye? If you're trying to pronounce it, then it's a slightly elongated "A." If you say the first alphabet at the end of every question, then you've got it, eh.

Later: I think I made Gavin start smoking again. I say this only because he mentioned that he had quit. Cigarettes are expensive here, which leads me to think that you should never pass them up. I only offered, and did no convincing. Marlboro lights. His face lit up with a bit of hesitation--as if he was thinking "oh wait.. I quit, so that means I shouldn't....."

Over a few cigarettes, Gavin would offer me advice on looking for work here in Auckland. He seemed to disfavour Hayes (a recruitment agency) a whole deal; he kept saying to be careful of these agencies with negative overtones.

Aside from the warning above, he went on about how people think it's good to work here but there's discrimination and from his experience, YOU'RE SHIT. He would then follow it up with another statement only to end up with "You're Shit!" once again. He did this maybe 2-3 more times. To me, it had appeared as though he had been burnt a few times in terms of work.

I gather that he was quite adamant about not liking Auckland or the work in Auckland by how fervently he said "You're shit!" It didn't lack conviction at all, as though he really knew that I was shit by how fast he said it. I was convinced. I was considering diving into the toilet and embarking on my journey to the motherland when he stopped and changed the topic.

"Oh but the weed here is awesome, eh?" My eyes lit up now, but there was hesitation, as though I was thinking "Oh wait... I quit, so that means I shouldn't..." And so I held my silence.

This guy was exclaiming to me (and the sidewalk of half a dozen people) of his one and only experience and how he didn't take that much and was so fuccccckeeed up. If he only knew who he was talking to. According to him, you have to know some kiwi people to get really hooked up with the cannabis scene. I don't think it's that hard, really.

Then he shifted back abruptly to talking about looking for work. But seriously work this work that... Maybe he figured I was on to his over enthusiastic pot experience.

Pearson and Kwang Ming were at the party. Some of you might remember them. They were in the same secondary school as I was. By this time, Pierson had already adjusted to his Kiwi accent. This is where you add "bro" to the end of your statements, bro. Kwang Ming, however still sounds pretty much the same. Kwang Ming is continuing his studies here in business. I didn't get to find out what Pearson was doing here aside from drinking profusely. At one point, he took off his tshirt, but I have no idea what for--he might have been warm due to drinking or was duped into doing it by his elder brother Bronson. Bronson is also an old friend of my brother's, here since four years or so ago.

So Kwang Ming says: Let's go for a smoke. I just had one. He insisted. Five minutes later a bunch of us were heading to some other club or bar to meet some Brazilian girls. I didn't understand how one can end up deviating from just a cigarette to walking towards the main road in search of exotic girls. But these were Audrey's friends and I had no expectations of what was to come.

"Just go!"

"Just come!"

"What? Is this a strip club or what?"

"When you don't know, all the more reason to tag along!"

In case you have yet to learn this: that last quote is usually a surefire recipe for disaster, injury and/or prison-time. I yielded all the way up to the crosswalk and went back to the bar. What a waste of time.

That's about all of Saturday night--there's actually more but it's just meeting people and the like. I didn't get to play cards but the people play for $5 a buy-in so I'd rather do something else. And so we drank gin tonics and did tequila shots and beer amidst ghosts in white. That's about it. I'd have pictures but Audrey has all of them. I'll find them eventually.

Bad Dream

So I started by taking the toilet brush. This was one of those special toilet brushes; the kinds that looked like a tooth brush with bristles on the back.

I flush the toilet and start scrubbing the bowl down. It was filthy with residual crap all over. I remember the filth spreading from bowl to seat.

I think I finished cleaning around late 5am, which was when I woke up. This was a dream. I think I have mental health issues.

Maybe tomorrow

I woke up today determined to stop cracking my fingers, knuckles, whatever. I didn't have a dream about it or anything. I just thought that I should stop. That's just how I roll: I decide things when I wake up.

I didn't. A few hours later, it happened--I cracked my fingers; shoulders, feet, neck and toes altogether.

I've heard from people--the same people that say a lot of things, for some reason--that cracking your fingers will eventually cause some form of difficulty for your fingered future(s)--something to do with pain or big joints.

Yata!!

I, appparently, look like Milo Ventimiglia of Heroes (Peter Petrelli). I don't see any resemblance except that I can absorb powers of others'.

Wasps

I didn't know what day it was today. Apparently. I am two days behind, still stealing/borrowing bandwidth off the neighbour. with a head in the clouds and additional to disliking spiders, am more of hornets or possibly wasps.

They are nesting on my fence right outside my window--that can't be more than 12 feet from where i sleep. Have you ever seen a wasps' nest? Imagine hearing them zing over your head and not being able to spot them.

However, they've been taken care of. They are all dead now. Father took some insect spray to it. He was stung the other day. Your hand goes numb just from one sting. These suckers aren't too big--just about smaller than a little paper clip.

Sleeping/Insects

One thing you'll need to get used to is the sound of the insects outside. In their full glory, these little suckers can go up to a distant power-tools decibel. Naturally, this is what you'll hear last before you sleep. Every night.

Disney

The house played host to friends of the family today--Children aplenty. The TV was set to Disney for most of the day. This marks the end of all the interesting parts of the day. 3 meals, 3 cigarettes (maybe more) and a lot of TV.

A family lived there! With children!

Gjin's neighbour's house is for sale and so we went to take a look. You would not believe the state of this place. The place was filthy inside and out.

Outside: damp mud and leaves lead in to the doorway.

Inside: the place reeked--smelling of dampness and mold. All sorts of household items lay over the floor, tables, mousetraps and spider webs. Imagine a whole family living here.

Pictures hung and pinned everywhere. Some self-made, and others: clippings from magazines. The tenants were out of town and left the light on to keep away thieves or robbers. You could leave the doors and windows open and no one would go into this place. I'm not even kidding you by exaggerating.

There was mold in the ceiling and the windows have been covered to avoid shame, perhaps. If you thought your room was messy and/or dirty, then I think YOU'RE just over-reacting. It creeps me out.