Message for Mona (who introduced me to it)

and to all fans of The Sims. Here comes The Sims 2.

picture source from The Sims 2 screenshot archives.

Get Along So Famously

Have you ever met someone in your life with whom you share interests and excitements in, for all of two hours (sometimes days) and then never seen or heard from them again? I’ll never meet these wonderful people again and it’s easy to know, we just never thought to exchange information.

How strange all this. If you live in a busy busy city, its intellectual denizens see nothing along its way to its destination. That’s why everyone’s always in a rush to go somewhere. Traffic jams are Jupiter’s way of telling us to slow down and smell the monsoon drain for freshly dumped unwanted babies. It doesn’t help that our sidewalks is less than three feet wide and the sun is always merciless. Pedestrians have no place to sit every 50 steps and the best thing is: this is a nation which frowns on youth sitting on pavements. It cultures budaya lepak. It’s a No-no. So, yes – it would be a very curious thing to see two or three kids squatting on the sidewalk to rest. They must be plotting anarchy.

I’m a fan of walking but if offered vehicular transportation, I would not hesitate. I’m in a vehicular limbo; a whore for generous rides and a miser with public transportation. The LRT is a fantastic place to meet people. Just for talks. No strings attached. I love being in the LRT – its almost cinematic, so Sliding Doors. Unfortunately light rail transportation etiquette is yet to be learned by city dwellers. It’s very simply [untuk perhatian para penumpang LRT]:

1. Let passengers alight before entering.
2. When going on the escalating stairs, stand to your left; rush only on the right side if you’re in a hurry. Don’t plonk yr ass on the right side if you’re going to be on the same stair block until you reach there. It just seems too annoying and rude.

So most of my days on the LRT, I’d sleep the journey off, people watch or read Ovid. Sometimes I talk to strangers. A British lady teaching sign language to her 2 year old daughter, the old weather-beaten uncle with four big bags full of treasured finds sitting on the floor, Jeffrey – the blind masseuse who tells me what a beautiful icon Marilyn Monroe is and Selvam – the chunky rocker who plays the bass guitar at church on Sunday. Some days on the train, everything seemed sepia; like when the old uncle and I talked. Some days on the train, all the city sounds hummed strangely weak and dull but most days, its sardine packed like the pink BMWs (Bas Mini Wilayahs) that used to terrorized our every street corners. Where’s the Malaysian media? Bring back the Smile campaign ~ like ntv7, where we can make it all feel-good.

I have not seen all these characters again. It’s like they stepped in on my train of thoughts, stayed for a cocktail, then leave. I’m indifferent; but I think of them from time to time. No one I know, knows them but there they are; always someone new; always someone with a story I haven’t heard before and there is always someone whose political ideologies mirrored yours exactly. The French ravers on Haadrin Beach who introduced you to mushroom shakes; the makcik who gets to spend two weeks with her lawyer son in the city having waited out for two hours at the bus stand and little Marie who showed me what thank you is in sign language; life wouldn’t be as interesting without those little talks with people I will never meet again. It’s the little things that make living so worthwhile and I love it like this. It’s intimacy that’s the bitch.