I Am Sitting, Staring And Smoking (The Three Asses)

Educational Practicalities
If the world of hard sciences like Physics is to be any more relevant to our everyday living, then perhaps it could boil down to this.

We have come across the Kilowatt-rating of electrical appliances from many a Physics textbook we have read. The air-conditioner functions on a BTU rating system. We could learn how we can convert this to KWh (I have done this once but have forgotten it by now) and have everyone know which items in the house are energy guzzlers.

What about sharing snippets of our lives on what works and what doesn't work for us. Of course we should have the proviso that it may not work for thou. For example, I hardly visit a doctor except for a hacking cough or a fever. Somehow Panadol doesn't work for me. But now that they have non-drowsy suppressive mucolyants sold over the counter for whooping coughs, I find that I don't have to see a doc for that anymore.

Education cannot be more practical than this.

Social Smoker
I picked up smoking when I was serving National Service. There are a handful of us who I suppose do pick up vices from doing their bit for the nation. Vices like vulgarities and smoking.

Smoking looks cool with the smoker being seen as sado-macho, lips parted holding a fag (pun intended), a white smoke trail whirling and something to do with your itchy fingers. Health concerns apart (and if the movie "Thank You For Smoking" is anything to go by, smoking may not be as deleterious as research doctors have yet to substantiate its hazardous effects), smoking contains nicotine which like any chemical stimulant, put you on an instant high if only for a brief moment.

After that, you find you need more puffs to get this same high which is the intended addictive nature of nicotine.

Just last Friday, I was lured to buy a pack of ciggies and today saw me lapping up my 2nd pack. Ciggies don't come cheap these days. Back in 2001 or thereabouts (and that was a period when I had a bout of extremely heavy smoking after a particularly nasty break-up and numerous troubles plaguing me), a pack costs something well within 5 bucks. Today, there is just one standard size and its price has skyrocketed to twice what it was back then.

I was pleasantly surprised when the vendor showed me strawberry filtered ciggies. Usually I chew on the light minty menthol tobacco flavor. But I just had to try this out.

New Place
I was frantically looking high and low for a new place. My scouting escapade has not resulted in any favourable searches but since Daniel issued the final ultimatum to leave within 4 days (I had to negotiate for 2 more days and my deposit was still 5 days shy of maturing), I was caught in a real bind.

At the eleventh hour, someone relented and I found myself sleeping on a mattress laid in the living hall. This is a space encircled by the sofa and a television side-board which demarcates my private space from the rest of the world unpartitioned. Lying just next to the window , the corridor lights offered me artificial lighting refuge from the pitch-darkness.

This vantage (if you wanna call it that, it could be "disturbing and too pervious" too) point offered me a panoramic peeping-out-the-window view to 4 reasonably nice-looking chaps, two Malaysians, one Filipino and one local, scurrying to work at the crack of dawn and to their alarms.

I sense a charade going on here and these folks look like they are hiding something. A masquerade party of sorts ala the "Wedding Banquet" with a pair of Malaysian "cousins" holed up in one bedroom and the local bedding in with his "weekend galfren" (whom I have yet to have the honor to see). I am supposed to be the local's "buddy" if the house-owner comes a-knocking and asking.

The only eligible bachelor seems to be the Filipino. I will give them all the benefit of the doubt but my eyes will be peeled for little tell-tale signs. Like the jockstrap and way too cute swimming trunk hanging out to dry. Much too sexy I must add.

As they shuffle their blurry and half-woken bodies and faces to and fro between their bedrooms and the bathroom, moi sleeps on, semi-conscious himself, with the swirl of the light, the sound and the foot-steps going all around him.

I had a stiff neck too. I haven't had any back or neck pains for the 3 months I put up at Daniel's. This means that all that abdominal crunches and exercises have paid off. It also means that sleeping on the floor tend to aggravate my body aches and pains.

Anyway Patrick, the Filipino tenant, is supposed to shift out and I am taking over his place. I hope he does soon.

SUPERMAN hasn't been unpacked and he sits draped in two layers of CARREFOUR plastic bags and he won't see the light of day, at least not yet, for a whole month as this is a temporal abode until I find a "permanent" place the following month.

Superman Has Replied
Speaking of SUPERMAN, the other SUPERMAN in my life (remember MR ARMY HUNK?) has finally replied to my electronic mail. WHOA! My heart skipped a beat here. I didn't know what to say except that we should text instead of chatting online.

It is obvious that bouncing chatter off your friends or whoever does sometimes light up our headbulbs. While chattering with MR ARMY HUNK, I realised I should find out if this club membership was transferable. This may seem trivial but it won't be anymore should you be caught in a CATCH-22 (pun intended) when you are unable to ride out the tenure of the membership due to various compelling reasons.

What Really Gets Me Up About This New Place
I can't afford the pricey room I am going to live in soon, which isn't much better than most that I have seen (in fact the whole place is old and run down), but it is nestled in the green lung of a town park and I can actually walk to places I have my regular fixes without taking the bus or train. Places like the three swimming pools, one stand-alone library, two stadia, two gymnasiums , a highly popular shopping mall, a cineplex, neighborhood shops, grocery stores and eateries which dot the whole scenic route, all within walking distance of each other and straddling two estates.

This is what I really like about the place. Two towns for the price of one. And a gazebo looking out to the town park where I can sit, stare and smoke while deep in pensive thoughts, relishing the cool breeze after a heavy downpour.