everything you did was exactly what you wanted

Nothing lasts forever, so live it up; drink it down, laugh it off, avoid the bullshit. Take chances and never have regrets because, at one point, everything you did was exactly what you wanted.

~Marilyn Monroe~

That thing they call love

Love One Another

Love one another, but make not a bond of love.

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together.
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

~Khalil Gibran~

Just hug a bit longer

When was the last time you hugged? Remember the feeling? The calm, the warm fuzzy feeling, doesn't it feel like home?

Did you know, the average length of a hug between two people is 3 seconds, but researchers have discovered something fantastic. When a hug lasts 20 seconds, there is a therapeutic effect on the body and mind. The reason is that a sincere hug produces a hormone called "oxytocin", also known as the love hormone. This substance has many benefits in our physical and mental health. It helps us, among other things, to relax, to feel safe and calm our fears and anxiety. A hug heals  loneliness, isolation, and anger.

Instead of buying calm and temporary happiness in form of pills and smokes, try hugging. This wonderful calming therapy is free of charge every time we have a person in our arms, when we cradled a child, cherish a cat or dog, dancing with our partner, or just hanging on to the shoulders of a friend. 

 

Have a hug today, it doesn't matter if you are giving or getting one. Just hug a bit longer.

I bet you will feel wonderful!

How Many Phones Does A Person Really Needs?

Someone asked me today how many phones do I own, and that got me thinking, how many phone does a person really need? One for work? Another for personally use? Both in one if you don't like lugging more than one (but you must have all accounts under the same network- those dual-sim aren't really big now, mostly popular among kids (for whatever reason) and migrant workers, usually in low end phones. And with smartphones, you really need more than one (or two)? Do you really need an Android along with that iPhone and Blackberry?

And what about people like my dad, who must have a top of the line phone (especially when it's the daughters buying *wink* Love you Baba!) yet even keep all the phone numbers in his head, and only figured how to read text message late last year? Not to mention those being on a dataplan yet just use the top of the line smartphone for just calling and texting, with a bit photo taking.

And the kids these days, what's the deal with accessorizing an 8 years old with a high-end phone? So that they will be smarter in school? Able to figure out rocket science faster? So that they can play CandyCrush in style?

Now back to the question of the day, 'how-many-phone-person' do I look like I am?

Poem XX from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Tonight I Can Write

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, ‘The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Pablo Neruda (1924)
Poem XX from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair 

Note : The book came in the mail yesterday.  No note, no nothing. Just possibilities. My endless gratitude to the person, for knowing my love and fulfilling it when I least expect it. I hope someday I will be able to make you as happy as I am right now. 

Naked heart, bare soul. 

Only Pablo can make pain feels so good.

Getting 'tapai'ed

... that reminds me the time I discovered 'tapai'. 

It was Eid, and the men were busy with the qurban meat. While waiting, the host started to bring out 'tapai pulut', 'ketupat pulut' that's ready filled with 'sambal daging' and many other delicious stuffs. 

A cousin convinced me to try the 'tapai', and left soon after that, I was all alone, bored with the book I brought along and started to get acquainted with the fermented glutinous rice . 

By the time the men were done, I have polished all the 'tapai' that's wrapped in rubber leaves, (I left the one in banana leaves alone) there must have been at least a dozen and was giggling a bit too much. 

They hauled me home, making sure I sleep off the '5% effect'. 

And that was a wonderful experience.