Observing the Observers

So, I attended Indonesia's 1st Hot Air Balloon Adventure at Sentul City yesterday (27/3). Crowdy, yet cheerful. There were only two balloons on ground when I get there, whereas the other 16 were airborne. I love seeing the colors against the clear blue sky. The anticipation of waiting the 16 balloons to get back and be displayed on a corner. It was pretty hot, I tell you, I had to squint my eyes very hard every time I got out of the shade. My bf was sweating his ass off. I'm sure everybody felt the same heat. It was only 8 o'clock and it felt like 12.

There's something else I notice from the crowd. The way everybody was holding their cameras, man, it could as well be a camera exhibition. So out of the mere excitement of seeing a lot--and I mean A LOT--of cameras, my dad offered a suggestion. Why not observe the observers? And so I did.

Here are some of them.

... and this is my very own personal favorite

What a weekend. I get to see the parade of balloons, spend time with my loved ones, and freshen my eyes with beautiful, beautiful gadgets. ;D

Until next time,

Kalista.

Leaving Pandora.

saint-like

as I stroll through the last days of term break, I'm beginning to feel the bittersweet sensation. of parting from the boring days i've had, and of greeting new days; scary and chaotic. i guess.. what i really feel is.. dissatisfaction. disappointment. oh well.

wash me clean, will anyone? from distant memories of fantasies, of possibilities. as reality begins to show its new dawn, my dreams falter into dusk.

i'm keeping them in a tiny little box. where they don't matter anymore. where all they can do is slumber. until one day, maybe one day, i'll come and open the box, walk the walk through the flame again.

my visa in Pandora has expired. i'm taking an Ikran out of here. and i'm okay. i will be, at least. ;)

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

the sky that afternoon was so lovely I decided to get out on the street bare feet just to get a shot at it.

Nightmares and dreamscapes.
What do they even mean? Are they fragments of yourself, trying to get out? Or divine interventions?
What does it mean, when you dream about something so often you forgot to keep count? Does it mean that you want something so much that it affects your subconscious? Or was it just a fragment of the things you think about right before you go to sleep?
Dreams and dreams themselves are reminders.
Of what you've forgotten.
Of your wants and needs.
Of the things you want to forget.

Of the things you've missed, and the things you're missing.
Of something.. slightly out of reach.

In Knowing What I Had and Being Forced To Let It Go

it's like.. finding the right shoes like it's tailor-made for you. and yet.. you can't afford it.

Yang.

It's been a long time since I've seen her like this. Glowing with different sets of colors, vibrant and rich. She's passionate, I could see it in her eyes. And the man standing behind her could barely sense this. He's like this tiny box, unfitting for her spreading blasts of colorful beams. It just feels wrong. And I could see, in glimpses that she's feeling rather unsatisfied. His humble gestures were no match to her brilliance. She's an angel--no, a faerie--on a short leash, unable to fly.

I'm In Love with My 2-year-old Nephew

Oh wow, I just got home from Bintaro. Just visited two houses of my relatives. I met my favourite nephew today, his name is Carlo. He's only 2 years old but man, he can take my breath away. :D We didn't get along quite well at first, he kept running off from me. But once I have my mom's digicam in my hand, we became best buddies. But take this, most toddlers like their pictures taken. Not Carlo. He loves taking pictures. He got really high when he clicked the shutter and the flash went off. Trouble was, he put his fingers on the lens so all you got is red-ish pictures.

that's him, and one of the pictures he took

Unlike other 2-year-olds who keeps whining and weeping all the time, he didn't cry ONCE this evening. He just kept running around, showing everybody his daddy's car, comparing it to the cars he saw in a magazine, learning new words and practically absorbed everything I taught him. The funny thing was when I pointed a picture of Noordin M Top on Tempo Magazine and I asked him who it was, he answered "Papa."
It's fatalistic to mistake a crazy terrorist for your father.

Today I'm reminded of how much I've missed out. I love my family. Both sides. My father's side, well, they're more relaxed. I can connect with them in no time at all. They don't gossip much and they don't ask the exact same questions each year we see each other. Well, some of 'em don't. The old ones still do. My mom's family are mostly women so you know what you'll get. But I'm a bit closer to them so I know almost everyone.
They all have their kinks but, hey, whose family doesn't? I find myself making more effort to communicate with them and the more I do, the more I enjoy being around them. Well, maybe once or twice a year is the perfect amount to see that big of a family. You really get to like them. Spend more time than that, you might get irritated.

I think I'm lucky. In a way.


On the ride home, seeing the streetlamps of Pondok Indah, I was reminded of a fragment of my past. Hmm. Then I thought about Le Babouin. I miss him so much I could die.

Surgical.

It's a little past eleven and already the sun is searing hot. And I mean ho-oott! Second day of Syawal, I've been busied all morning with houseworks and Murakami. Yep, I finished the Murakami. What do I think of it? Hmm. Otherworldly, I guess. Reading his book is like exploring through a series of subconscious experiences, like being in one of my dreams where everything's distorted but you can see a lot of different things in there. Every emotion is projected a certain way. Like this dark corner of yourself you never thought you have but you always see when you're sleeping. When everything else is dark. That's how I feel about Murakami. One of my friends once mentioned about how he couldn't seem to enjoy Murakami's novel because he couldn't find closure in the end. Maybe that's what it is. It left you.. lingering. Like when you find yourself looking through the window to an open sky and just stay there for a couple of minutes without any thought whatsoever, as your eyes began to get unfocused and everything else around you blurred out. You thought you were waiting for something to appear, but you settled just by gazing absently.

Yes, it got me this emotional. I don't know. I think I need this kind of reading. Not just meaningless tweets or obligatory news stories. Makes me wanna write. :)

Today I might be doing my round of silaturahmi. Visiting relatives, driving around the empty streets of Jakarta. Maybe later I'll drop by to the nearest bookstore and go grab Dan Brown's new fiction. Hmm. Another conspiracy story. Nice. I can't wait to go on an adventure with Robert Langdon again.

I'm in a crossroad. I think I can feel myself building new walls, slowly but ever so sure. I feel the presence of Ms. Cristina and Ms. Yang again. They've been gone for a while, but now they're back. Arguing again. I hate them. I want them to go away.

Yang : But you need me, Cristina. You need me now more than ever.

How to Force Myself Out of Misery.

Hello. I just got home from a movie in Djakarta Theater with Le Babouin. Funny movie. Entertaining, despite the fact that we got there late and I was distracted most of the time. No. NOT doing "stuff". Something else.
On the way home, for the 700th time, we got a flat tire. A screw screwed into the tire mercilessly, creating a bang. So we pulled over and started to look for a tukang tambal ban. We found one, rather quickly too. As I look around, I noticed something. Hey, isn't that a tombstone? There's another one. And another one. And another one. Oh. That's a graveyard. That oughta be rich. Ha. But no, nothing incidental.

Murakami update : getting interesting. I think I'll finish it in a couple of days.

I feel rather down tonight. Le Babouin is going away for holiday and I'm kinda left with a trail of pain. Sometimes I think to myself : how did I get into this? Lately, the pain has become unbearable. And I HATE BEING THOUGHT OF AS SOMEONE STUPID. I'm not stupid. I know more than everybody thinks I do. It's just weird. It's like biting your lips to endure the pain, but it's still there. It got worse and the cut got deeper.

I don't know. Maybe I just want someone to say :
"Even though you stay quiet, I can tell you're crying. And I'm sorry."

Today I Lay on a Stack of Hay.

First and foremost, I think I need to warn you about the randomness of this post. It might be severe. My mind is all over the place right now but I've made a vow to myself that whenever I feel the urge to write, I'll write. So don't say you haven't been warned.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Okay, update on the Murakami project. Loving it. So far, at least. I love how he writes and makes the monotony of everyday life feels so... upbeat. I think I've chosen the right title for my first Murakami novel : Dance Dance Dance. My kind of pleasure. Literature and the illusion of music. Hmm.

I've been enjoying my life a little bit more. Though there's a few hick-up know and again, most of them are concerning my love life. But well, I should be able to cope.
Hmmmm. I love fresh couples. I love young loves. Young, not in the context of age, but rather in the novelty of it. I love seeing people blush when they meet someone they have a crush on. How they couldn't stop talking about it even though I've explicitly told them to (no, it's not you, R. i love hearing your stories. They're magical). Sometimes I feel envious. This is how I recognize my longtime disease : Needingnewsparkizoma.

Random, random, random.
Let's see, what did I do today? 'Been sleepy all morning. I felt angry most of the day, I don't know why (or actually I know why but maybe I was exaggerating). 'Buka Puasa' with my Baboon and my family. Yes, I don't exactly like the term "break-fasting" it's like.. morning time meal. Ha. Doesn't suit me very well. That's about it. Starting to feel like my life's a big joke, but I got over it. I'm writing, aren't I? That's my purpose in life. To write.

I love reading Murakami in between classes and while waiting for the bus. Gives me solitude.
I hate traffic in Jakarta these days. Makes me wanna eat myself alive from toe to head (toe first because if I eat my head first I don't get to eat my feet).

That's all about today.
Tomorrow I'm gonna be missing Le Babouin.

'Till later.

On Being Forced Out of Love and Appreciating Everything Before They're Lost.

It's the second day I've been trying to read one of Murakami's classics. Hmm. No, I wouldn't say the book is hard to digest, but I merely need more time to read it. Like, really some alone time. I think it's gonna turn out great.
I realized a strange thing back when I was strolling through the book store with my family : I've always wanted to read Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex". That title always comes up at the top of my mind whenever I was planning to go to the bookstore, but somehow, it always ended up in the bottom of the stack of my reading choices and eventually I bought something else instead. Hm. I never knew why.

Alright. I guess I know what the topic of the day would be : LOVE. Corny, tacky and abstract, love. After reading one of my friends' post about how wonderful it is to be in love, and in retrospect read my post about how it is to be forced out of love, I gained some interesting insights.

Being in love,.. isn't necessarily blinding as people said it would. Yeah, all we see are flowers and rainbows and goofy stuff. Hear this, if we all were born a saint--a purist--then people are all essentially good, right? I think being in love, is actually the ultimate eye-opening phenomena that's ever happen to us. For a moment, a week, a year, or in some cases a lifetime, we see the best of someone and in effect (normally, that is), we try to bring out the best of ourselves. And I think that's a good thing. Living for 20 years listening to news about murder, theft, riots, unsafe neighbourhoods, I think I was forced to understand that people can be bad. People are bad. It's exhausting. Like, you have to look over your shoulders every 2 minutes, you have to maneuver your moves into society so you can decide who you can trust and who you can't. It's like a never-ending effort that never quite works anyway. Our spouses still cheat on us, our parents lie, our friends talk about us behind our back, I mean what's the point?

Being in love, I think is a gift. Because for that period of time, you can become the most positive person you can be. The only misery might be your struggle to be the best. That struggle, that fight, worth more than you can think.

Being in love is a process. Not a destination.
If only.. we can learn to fall in love with each other just a little bit more, don't you think the world would be just a little bit better?

On Being Forced Out of Love and Not Being Able to Do Anything.

Do you know the feeling when you're really devastated you can't even cry anymore? All you can do is to keep breathing, and feel every fragment of yourself vanishes as you let that last breath go. It's like giving up, but by force. It's like losing you beliefs for yourself and everything around you. Like you finally realized, the happy ending you wanted isn't for you.

As you breathe, and you breathe, and you breathe for so long it's like you're going numb. Except for that tiny tingling hint of pain you feel in every joint in your body that keeps you longing for a painkiller. That keeps the urge of crying without a single drop of tear exists.

It's like losing your options when you're ready to choose.
Like loving someone, and lose.


... and in the end, you alone are going to feel what you feel. Until your body crumbles, as you watch your soul.. walk away.

Filosofi Gula

kok kosong rasanya kata-kata itu
seperti icing sebuah cupcake yang meskipun di sayang-sayang nantinya akan habis juga.
lalu harus dimakan atau nggak sih?
icing itu kan cuma kumpulan gula, dengan bentuk dan warna
tapi memang hanya gula.
pemanis.
seperti gulali di Fatahillah
dimasukkan mulut, dirasakan manisnya, tapi cepat sekali hilangnya.
lalu coklat
coklat susu. hmmmm. ups. ternyata coklat itu pahit kan?

jadi sebenarnya buat apa?
kalau pemanis itu cuma tipuan yang berlangsung sebentar?
hanya seperti gula kah?
yang menurut lidahku juga bukan makanan yang friendly.
atau seperti seporsi makan siang 4 sehat 5 sempurna?
sehat, enak, beragam, dan melengkapi satu sama lain.



PS : ya, gue lagi puasa. jadi begini.

sweet cakes and milkshakes.

it's monday morning and i'll be missing you a whole week. say hi, dear, to my new blog. :)

O Creativity, Where Art Thou?

It's 20.29 in my Mac's clock, I've just come home from a movie and dinner with my loved ones. The house is really quiet. Most of my family have gone to the mosque, I guess. Hm. I think I've never been this alone in my house. It's nice, sometimes. I don't hear noises from my brother's computer, or the sound of tv blaring from the living room below. It's like I'm in a quiet corner of my mind, absorbing the solitude.
Hmmm. I miss writing. It's been a while since I wrote anything but complaints. I want to write something decent, something joyous--if not rich, something.. alive. Maybe I should start a journal. Yes, a diary, a new one. And maybe vow to myself that I won't turn it into another garbage disposal. Like this blog, for instance. It started as a media for me to write anything I wanted. Now all you can find here is just complaints. Endless rant of how miserable my life is, while it actually isn't.
I want to be.. creative, again. I want to open my mind to the sound of the wind; the gentle night breeze and not complain about the heat. Like a scene in The Matrix where Neo learned to jump over buildings. I want to jump over rivers, oceans. I want to do the impossible.
I want my mind to be free.

Fact.

Have you ever noticed that when you're crying alone, your body feels colder and after you're finished, you have this big urge to pee? Everytime. I don't know why.

Wishful Thinking

sometimes I wish I had a big brother so I can lean on him whenever I'm sad.
sometimes I wish I had a little sister with whom I can make dolls with.
sometimes I wish I had better skill as an artist.
sometimes I wish I could sing.

other times I wish I was taller.
other times I wish I had tidier bedroom.
other times I wish I wasn't me.
other times.. I wish I wasn't as lonely as I feel.

but sometimes, I just wish to be myself, free of expectations, living life the way I wanted.
sometimes I wish, I could be ugly and people still love me.




hhhhh...
sometimes I wish I wasn't this selfish--or whiny.

Pandora's Box

Oh, heck. I've been holding in the urge to complain for quite some time and face it, I'm not perfect. My life isn't.
You know, I do really feel like I'm Alice. Lost in a world she doesn't understand, bitching and complaining, and sounding like a snob, bossing around every weird creature she comes across. Like Crazy Mad-Hatter who thinks everyday's worth celebrating for the vague reason that it's NOT his birthday. Maybe I should do that. Celebrate the days I feel unloved.
Oh, how I reach this crazy state of discomfort--yet again? I just wanna eat my body alive, you know. Yeah, and watching "His Just NOT That Into You" is clearly not helping at all. Now I just wish I have an Alex around so I can ask him things I should know about a man. So unrealistic, for I know every man is as good as jerks like he said, and he's just gonna be one of them anyway.
I've never been this harsh in my posts before,... or have I? Ah, what do you care? You're just a server, you can't talk back. Anybody who reads this probably just has nothing better to do and they're not gonna talk back either.
Well, what do you know? I guess this is my way of celebrating my crappy day. Which is pretty much 364 days in a year. Not to exaggerate. This is just how low I feel.

Dum Dum Dum

Browsing through my older posts, I came to realize that they have become so much more selfish. Everything in them is all about me, a series of endless and bottomless complaints. In effect, I became more selfish. I hate this part of my life. The part where everything seems to be wrong, and what I do always end up hurting someone.
This is not me. I was vibrant, carefree, sweet in my own way (as people around me would say). I march to no one else's drums, and I loved it. What have I done to get to this point? Another mistake? The same one, perhaps?
I used to be selfless. I know it. But lately all I think about is me and how I don't get enough of what I want. Is this supposed to be like this? Because if it is, I wanna go. No, not run. Just maybe take a step back in intention of taking 2 steps forward.
Like this sweet little dance we do. Don't you think we should change the music now?

Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind

How happy is blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted and each wish resign'd.
--Alexander Pope

Hatred

It's like an itch all over my body and I don't know where to scratch. Like a failed spell, all I've burned was my own energy.

Really exhausting and unfair.