HANI's Honey

Friday, March 21, 2003

10:49 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

Let the war take care of itself

Michael Jackson - Man in the Mirror

Everyone seems to be upset about the war. Everyone is at least talking about the war.

What does HANI talk about?

Her feelings about her boyfriend's parents....

I know this may fill some people in horror or disgust.... but I am not concerned with the war.

Three reasons:
1. I don't have time to do anything about it, so I refuse to feel strongly about it.
2. There are many more things I can concern myself with that I can more directly effect.
3. Concerning myself about the war is like worrying that the the ground will split open beneath me, and end up dying because a durian fell on my head.

I have always felt that if I feel strongly about something, I should do something about it. It's the way I was raised, and the way of all my role models. This doesn't mean that my role models are all that active in voluntary work, though some are. It just means that they choose to do something about their passions.

For example, my mother believes in education. Despite having full-time work, she managed to publish a text book, and guest lecture at various universities every now and then. She personally sponsors several kids' university education.

I believe in honesty. That's why I'm attempting celibacy, and I'm blabbing everything on my weblog. It may not be the wisest or most productive way to express what I believe in, but the point is that I'm actually doing something about it.

I am, however, quite the lazy bugger. So, I get very choosy in the things I believe in strongly. This is the main reason I choose not to feel strongly about the war.

Call it a lame excuse. Possibly, it is. If I believed strongly in the war, I'd feel obliged to do something about it. I'd feel obliged to show up at a peace march. Since I have no vehicle, and since my mother says I'm not allowed to go anywhere without her express permission, anyway, this would be very difficult. I'd feel obliged to run around trying to increase people's awareness about the war. Since I seem to be receiving loads of information about the war from nearly everyone I know, it seems wasteful of my already wasted time (and very boring) to do something as redundant as to try increasin the awareness of people who are already aware about the war. I've linked Nabil and I figure that's more I've done against the war than I feel about it already.

Secondly, I don't feel right going around worrying about the state of war in a far-off place, while I could be attempting change right here in Malaysia. Old, decent folks whose retirement fund isn't enough anymore to keep them healthy and happy till the end of their lives. The ignorance of many women on their rights. The lessening quality of education in this country. The evil snake-oil salesmen with medical degrees in private clinics.

Oh, if I started actually caring for the millions of issues in my head, I'd never have time to feed myself. (Not that I make time to feed myself all that much anyway.)

The final reason that I choose not to be concerned about the war: I have more urgent things to think about. Like me.

I have failed whole semesters of college, three times. I'm still highly dependent on my mother. My boyfriend and I are going through a rocky change in our relationship dynamics. I'm a Muslim who eternally postpones praying. I keep failing at living my life according to my own principles! And you want me to care about changing other people's principles?

Hey, I may not have mastered Habit One (Being Proactive) of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People yet, but I've managed a loose grasp of Habit Three (First Things First), and the first thing I gotta do is graduate.

I'll go around helping people less fortunate than I am, when I'm competent and independent, and not depending on fortune myself.

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030321a

Friday, March 21, 2003

07:42 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

Showing My Feelings

1. her first boyfriend (who I hate for no fault of his own, but my own failure),
2. the first guy she slept with (who also I hate for my own lack of "NO" strength),
3. her father (for reasons I will never explain here, since it's all been worked out and I no longer hate him), and
4. Elijah Wood (he smirked at me!).

I hated them because they were people I cared about, and they were important people in my life. I hated them as much as I cared about them, so I hated my father most of all, since I love him only next to my mother, whom I love most.

The less I care about the person, then the more I'm polite to them. I just don't care about them. Let them hate me, let them scoff me, let them despise me, let them waste all their energy, time, and life on me. I will not return the favour to people I do not care about.

More often than not, I'm very polite to people I don't care about. This is because I don't want to waste my energy and time arguing with people I don't care about. Sometimes, I'm rude, but only in situations where being rude would mean I save my energy and time.

Sometimes, when I don't know how to show my affection to some people, I show the opposite instead. Hey, it's the same level of intensity! To love, to hate.... I heart thumps faster, the adrenaline runs through me, I get all dizzy.... Where's the difference in how your body reacts?

I guess maybe that's why I have so much difficulty with Tariq's parents. I admire and love Tariq's parents very much (although I'm sure they don't reciprocate). Instead of showing them how much I admire them, I avoid them instead. Pretend exasperation or hatred, and constantly talk about how I blame them for my own failure to show them how much I care.

I invest so much time and energy into Tariq's parents, but it's all ineffective time and energy. I'm too scared to take positive action, because in my silly, illogical mind, it's better to avoid them and bitterly complain about how they don't like me, than to actually open myself to the potential that they might actually show me their disdain and dislike for me.

Am I a coward, or just prudent? Is there a real chance that if I take the risk of exposing myself to disdain, that they might learn to like me and maybe even love me back? It's so easy to play martyr and say "ah, poor me, they are so cruel to disdain my love," but since I've never shown them my love, how can they return it?

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030321

Thursday, March 20, 2003

11:09 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

Have decided to keep my boy

I feel a little amazed by that.

She's a patient, quiet, old lady who dotes heavily on Tariq. I adore her. I think I'm very biased and I adore everyone who loves Tariq. God knows that it's a contradiction that I adore Tariq's mother for loving Tariq, and feel very exasperated with her for not appreciating me.

Tariq's grandmother is in the hospital. She broke a leg, apparently. That's why Tariq couldn't come see me yesterday. He spent the whole of yesterday with his grandmother in the hospital. He even fed her, his maid reported. Tariq is so cute.

He came to see me today! He is beautiful. I am happy. Day One of celibacy was a relative success. I guess. Well, he gave me an orgasm, the naughty boy, but it was only one, which is rather good compared to his usual attempts to asphyxiate me with orgasms. He was fully dressed and there was no intercourse!

It is lovely to be able to touch him and smell him again. Although we spent most of the day in the company of his maid and his grandmother at the hospital, I was very happy. Both his maid and his grandmother like me well enough, and I am content to just have Tariq's subtle scent around me.

I love him so. With him, I feel complete and whole. In Tariq, I know I have a companion who truly thinks I am so wonderful that he is willing to spend the rest of his life with me. He knows the real Darth Honig in me, and yet he loves me anyway.

Yes, he insists on slipping his hands under my clothes even in public. He often can't differentiate between important and urgent things. His quick wit but slow sense of propriety gets him into embarrassing and problematic situations. His terror of his father, and his jealous mother are annoying to live with.

Yet I wouldn't trade him for anyone else in the world. He calls me from London every day. He takes care of me when I'm overwhelmed and vulnerable, but he never doubts that I'm capable and competent. He treats my body like a baby's, and he treats my mind like a scholar's. He's willing to deal with the migraines, the PMS, the ADD, the material greed, the delight in manipulation, the abuse, the physical laziness and the lecturing. He has seen every part of me, the good and the ugly, and he's accepted it all. He loves it all.

I'm still not forgiving him for not seeing me on Wednesday, though. Not until he buys me a sushi meal!

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030320

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

07:20 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

writing more than a weblog

I never wrote down the full stories however. I would write scenes, abruptly taken out of a whole story. I never wrote in one single book, either. I wrote on whatever paper was in my hand. My maths books, my diary, printer paper. My elder sister used to read some of these scenes and get frustrated because she wanted to know what happened next.

I never truly appreciated what she meant by that, when I was a kid. I always thought that she meant I was a disappointment for not being able to finish writing a whole story. Now that I think it over, I must have had some amazing talent to engage my sister's interest in characters that were set up in one scene, out of context.

I don't write fiction of any sort anymore. Somehow, I no longer have stories that linger in my head. I don't feel a passion for these fictitious people any longer. The worlds that were once so essential in my head just seem unimportant now. The stories just began fading away slowly from the moment I graduated from UNIS.

I still enjoy writing, though. I write my thoughts and my feelings. I write my opinion.

Many people have suggested I go into journalism, but I was too scared when I first left high school. I wrote fiction not fact. Furthermore, my fiction was fading. I was convinced I couldn't actually write. I didn't find the people suggesting I further my writing to be credible. I believed they either had standards that were too low, or were biased.

Now, to my surprise, people actually like my blog. I may no longer write fiction, but that talent to engage people in one short scene, seems to have stayed with me. Maybe I should use my skill for something more than just making a soap opera out of my dramatic head.

I'll have to think on it.

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030319

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

11:15 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

Words are just a pile of symbols

But too sleepy to find words that match with the abstract concepts in my head.

Really, when I write my blogs, I have no idea what the conclusion will be. The problem seems to be that most of my values, philosophies, ideas, beliefs, and thoughts run around my brain using its own symbols (not even a language yet), more abstract than even the symbols of dreams.

So, more often than not, when I say I explore a topic on my blog, I'm actually just looking for words in my left brain to represent the symbols in my right brain. The topic has already been thought out by my super-quick partially subconscious right brain.

Now both sides of my brain want to sleep, so that Tariq comes home faster.

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030318a

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

12:19 a.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

blogs, dicks and token breasts

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030318