stories of some bad ass girl

l blah l theGirl l rants l oldStuff l linkies l

Welcome to my blog.
If you have this url, you're prolly one of the chosen ones.

By reading my blog, you agree to:
Have fun reading it.
Comment only if you must.
Bear with my randomness.
Not be judgemental. Not towards me at least.

• time is a great healer

There is not one day goes by without me thinking about you. Either when I'm driving, passing by the places we used to go, like, over the weekend, as I was driving along the 5-South, San Diego freeway reminds me of you. Just the word San Diego is enough to remind me of you. Or sometimes before bed, I feel like I can still smell your body odor in my bed regardless of how many times I've changed the sheets since the breakup. The worse is when I think of you soon as I wake up, cuz I be thinking oh, usually I be up tiptoeing to the kitchen to make you coffee. Aww man, I was such a good girlfriend! Then I think of you the most when I smoke outside in my patio, because we spent so much time together there, just laughing and talking....

I don't think of you in a way of wanting you back. I think I just miss having you around. But then again, you weren't there much for me either. So many times I was in my patio waiting for you, then only to hear you canceled our plan. So many times I was in a hurry getting out of class only to find a text from you that you couldn't make it. So maybe I miss who I thought you were, the guy whom I thought seriously wanting to be with me.

The good news is, I don't feel as much pain when I think of you. I no longer rehash of what might or might not have happened, if this and that.

So hopefully one day.. I hope for a day goes by without a thought of you. I know I will get to that point. After all, time is a great healer.

• Photohunting session

Even before Spring Break started, I already had this plan in mind to do as much of photo-hunting while I'm on a break.

Having been living in LA for almost 12 years now, I feel like there's not much to see and interesting enough to photograph. What, like Hollywood? Bleh. Or Santa Monica? Oh come-on! It's like, I feel like I know this city so well I wouldn't have the eye to see anything worth photographing.. Cocky much? :D

But I'm in no situation to travel anywhere to take pictures. I'm stuck here. So I did my research and google and flickr everything about LA for hidden places that I never heard before. It turns out, there are SO MANY places I could go and explore here!

Marina del Rey with its Fisherman's Village and Lighthouse

Venice Canals

Hollywood Reservoir where I could see the cheesy Hollywood sign clearly!

I have a few other places in mind for this week and weekend to visit. So-so happy I get to explore more of this Lala-land! More pictures to come! ;)

• So I cried a little

A little too much, I mean. And no, it's not Laz I was crying about. It's my parents. My mom and dad. My nephew and niece. My family. I miss them all too much..

I didn't know how it happened really.. all I know I just started bawling. Could be a number of reasons. Three days ago, my dad surprised me with a phone call. It's very rare that he does that. So I thought it was sweet. He was all chipper and jolly telling me how he "tested" to see how much he could eat durians. Like, seriously dad? Testing your health isn't the way to go! He laughed so loudly when I scolded him about that. He did his best to not tell anyone about it, but next thing he knew, the news got spread out, even all the way out to America, he said jokingly. Ha!

Aside from that lovely call, there's this news about Lulu's dad's condition that is not so well, hence she had to fly home to see him. Then there's Susana's dad who's going through a surgery.

All these stories about dad and family, makes me nervous and worry, a bit of a guilt for not being able to even "promise" to go home and visit my folks. It sucks. This whole economy downturn fucks me up, and there's only so much I could do here to save a little bit of money that I earn, so I can come up w/ a budget to go home this year. Honestly, I'm not even close to being able to go. Ugh. If only a round-trip ticket is enough, then I would have gone by now.

So there goes the frustration, the worry, the feeling of missing them much, all mixed up in my head. I tell ya, mind can fuck with you at times if you allow and let it. Next thing I knew, I started bawling.. I couldn't even stop I cried myself to sleep last night.

I'm praying for peace much nowadays. For my own sanity.

• You.

"Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?" --Mary Morrissey

You. It's you who I want to let go of.

-trias-
-los angeles-

I've always been different growing up. My being the 3rd (middle) child might have added to it too, maybe. You know the old saying about being the middle child often has the sense of not belonging, the feeling of invisibility, which makes them try harder to get the attention from the parents to make them stand out more than the first and last child. They (read: experts and/or old people) even have it called a 'middle child syndrome'. I don't know... But yea, I grew up trying my best to annoy my parents, well, in my defense, I don't think I did it consciously. Compared to my other siblings, I wasn't the most polite child (my oldest sister was), nor the cutest (my youngest sister), and not even the worst (my brother haha!). Well, maybe I'm the second worst, which wasn't anything I should be proud of.

I grew up thinking I could do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. The sky was (and is) my limit. I was a tomboy and a bad kid too (I skipped school a lot during my junior high and finally got caught by my dad and boy did I pay much for it). I always love boys too. I know how to get them just by talking to them. I was (hopefully still is) a Miss Personality. I dated a lot. From one boy to another. I was obnoxiously flirty. My mom had (still has) problems with this "habit" of mine for liking boys so much. I always love English language. I wanted to travel overseas and spoke the universal language to anyone and everyone. I grew up knowing that if I speak English, everyone in this world would understand what I say. Make sense, right? Then I also always wanted to work in an office. I wanted to be a career woman, an independent woman who can afford anything on her own. I wanted to be bigger than the biggest.

Which isn't normal in any Indonesian culture guidebook.

By standards, an Indonesian woman is expected to be a good wife. Period. Oh yes, she can work, she can drive a car, she can play basketball, but at the end of the day, she MUST learn how to and become a good wife. Hey, first off, I'm not saying it's bad, I think it's great that a woman can be a good wife, but COME ON!! We, women, can become much more than that. We can be something bigger than that. Again, it's great to be a good wife, but when it's expected by the society, I think it's ridiculously silly. Human is human, regardless of its gender. We, women, should be allowed to have the same choices and opportunities as men, in any part of the world. Unfortunately, not in my part of the world. So yea, I'm fucked.

Before you punch me in the face for saying so, let me say this.

I tried.
No. Not just tried. I did what was expected of me as an Indonesian woman. Yes yes, I was married and did my best to be a good wife. Actually, I was a great wife. I did my best living my life by Indonesian standards. I was happy, but I turned into a different person who lived under a shadow of the person I was with. Yet, in my head, there's always this big question mark: Now what? Why do I feel lost being in this "happy" marriage? So, when the marriage fell apart, aside from feeling like the biggest failure in the face of the earth, I also felt..... relieved. Not happy, but relieved. For a few who knew me from/before the day I failed my marriage should know how devastated I was . I was broken, pathetic, lost, and pushed to the weakest point of my life. I lived in my own lonely little pathetic world (celibacy was part of it too) for a good one year.

But then I snapped out of it. HUGE thanks to my family and few of my friends who stood by me, helping me going through the worse time of my life. Kar who bought me a TV soon as I moved in to my own studio apartment. Sus who forced me to go get a vibrator to get through the celibacy time. Mel who gave me this silly book, sort of a guide, on how to be a BAD girl. Before I knew it, there I was having a buck fuddy, OK, two. ^-^

I learned my lesson the day I failed my marriage. Following the standard of a society is a good thing, but doesn't necessarily make one happy. Since then, I learned to live my life by whatever makes me happy. Sound selfish? Yes and No. It is a simple way of a person who wants to be happy. It is also my choice to make everyday a good day. To have a great time during miserable time. To be half full instead of half empty. It's my choice to laugh and not cry. To let go of hate and stop worrying so much. I learn to know that nothing, I repeat, NOTHING is a big deal. Because it doesn't matter how big of a problem I have, there's always someone else out there with a bigger problem. That's, my friend, when I know the exact meaning of "count your blessings".

Fast forward: Entering the 4th year of divorce anniversary *grinning*. Here I am. Stronger than ever. Bad ass for life. ^o^
[Monday, April 21, 2008]

Her mom and siblings and niece and nephew, movies, movies, movies, hats, unicorns, to smile and laugh, her friends, a Vinci Code, Mashimaro, manggo, black shirts, Gym, vodka-holic, tom Welling, dark chocolatte cuz its bitter, Korean language, Retro necklaces, Jeong ji-hoon, iPhones, Venice Beach, Nordstrom rack, hot guys with british accents, web design, Ebay, blogging (duh)

Pretentiousness, running (be in on a treadmill or outside), humidity, her left thumb, hypocrites, dangdut, hung-over, white shirts, tight pants, sandwich and salads, cowboy hats, black coffee, slow wifi