I spent my birthday working my ass off. I didn't sleep last night cause I was writing and re-writing stuff.
I went to a meeting today and then spent some time discussing some upcoming projects.
Some people, they can't work on their birthdays. They're of too delicate a nature to withstand the onslaught of reality that people do not actually give a fuck.
Me? I hate my birthdays. And I thank everyone involved for not celebrating it.
I had a birthday party when I was 8. And that was because I read in books that people actually celebrated it and had parties and shit.
So I forced my parents to buy a cake and a present - a magnifying glass. Which I used to burn ants. And burn paper. Hahahaha. Afterwards, I decided that I do not want parties for my birthday.
It's too...foreign.
Some people like being appreciated by being the centre of attention. SOme are indifferent, while others use it to get sex or to get out of work or shit like that.
For some, their birthdays are occassions for other people. It's not for them, but it's to make other people feel better. Or to give them a chance to make themselves feel better about the bad things they did all year long to the guy by being nice to him/her on his/her birthday
I mean, I saw people who shit on a guy clink glasses on the guy's birthday and then shit on him and then go around town saying that they're okay cause he celebrated the guy's birthday and shit.
Me? I still hate it.
Every time March 8 comes, old people like to give me advice.
My mother told me today to pray religiously, and to seek 'rezeki yang halal'. I asked her "What, rezeki saya tak halal ke selama ni?"
I was waiting for the cliched 'Bila nak kahwin?' but my parents are cool. Whenever I asked them whether they want any of us to get hitched and be 'successful' in the eyes of Malays, their response has always been, "Nak kahwin, kahwin. Tanak kahwin, sudah. Jangan menyusahkan aku sudah."
Kamil came and brought his kid and wife to see me yesterday - an act which I doubt the sanity of. I smoke a lot and the kid I think has some sort of breathing problem. And though I do not smoke with the kid around as much as I can, my apartment has large carbon prints.
Also met Roy and his very pregnant wife today. They're doing fine and are prepared for their first birth.
I don't hold it against anyone who get married or have kids - well, actually, for some people, I do. I mean, I still hope that some politicians' parents would abort their children. Some few decades after they're born.
But all in all, it is a choice. My beef sometimes come from the fact that some people have no idea how much it will cost.
A normal birth is not that expensive. But a problematic one involving Ceasarean and shit could balloon up to RM18,000.
GH is the cheapest, but you don't go for the generic version of stuff when it comes to life and death.
Having it at private hospitals could cost you up to RM9,000.
And then, the milk and diapers would set you back RM400-RM1500 a month. Depending on your expenditure.
Baby clothes. Prams. Toys. Check-ups. Injections.
And if the kid is lactose-intolerant, you have to get them soy-based milk. Which could be a problem, because soy milk increases the production of female hormones. Hormonal imbalance in any child at that delicate stage - be it male or female - is potentially dangerous. I'm not talking about small dicks, man-boobs or temper tantrums. I'm talking about possibilities of heart disease, kidney failure, cognitive impairment and shit like that.
The human body has gallons of hormones. Tip the scale a bit, just a bit, and problems will arise.
A safer alternative is goat milk, which is actually used more than cow milk, for some reason. Body milk is good, and will help in getting the mother's figure back, and give her a mild orgasm, but not everyone can stand doing it a few times a day, every day. The breasts convert nutrients from blood into milk. Breasts are basically very advanced and sophisticated chemical factories. I got these facts from comic books, so if they're wrong, sue them.
When I was born, my parents relied heavily on cow milk and reusable diapers. There's four of us, and two got breast milk when they were growing up and two got cow milk. I guess my parents were doing some experiments as part of the Dharma Initiative.
They did the best they can in raising me, but they were and are not millionaires. I don't blame them, but I believe that they would have fared better as a family, financially, if they did not have me.
I was lucky, though, as the last son of Pimpton, I got loads of hand-me-downs and my brothers and sisters helped support me.
And yet, I did not have enough money to buy comic books. So I read whatever was handy. Encyclopaedia sets and Reader's Digest magazines and Times and Massa. I also stole and read the Gospel of St Luke and Six Shakespeare Plays which my father had to study at English schools.
It was quite an uneventful childhood, and I was a boring as well as a bored child. The kids in the village liked to go out and hunt and fish. I preferred to sit at home and watch TV.
I listened to how they speak and in my youth, I used to affect a pretty decent British or American accent whenever I wanted to impress people. However, they never got it. That used to frustrate me a lot. And even now, when I use pop culture references to shit, and it just goes whoosh over people's heads, I get angry. Sometimes.
Not much anymore, because I am learning to accept idiots and be thankful for them. WIthout idiots, it would be hard for me to look this good, by comparison. Those backstabbing stupid motherfuckers? Good, good.
I mean, I love dealing with smart people, and have learned to cherish them. And the world would indeed be a better place if everyone is smart. Saves me time explaining shit. But idiots also have their place and their function.
Also, the truth is that everyone's an idiot sometime. I mean, I'm an idiot when talking about, say, ancient gay French literature. I know nothing of ancient gay French literature. I don't even know if it exists.
But I know a lot about certain comic books.
I thank God for smart people, and I thank God for idiots as well. Live and let live. And fuck off and die, when the time is appropriate.
If there's any gift I'm giving myself this year (aside from this chair I got and possibly a laptop next month and a decent pair of Nike shoes) it would be not to focus my energy on idiots, but to work with as many smart, kind and talented people as I can.
Okay. I am going back to work.
