Hippo With Metal Mouth

I am a man with many, many, many, many wishes. I whine a lot and maybe a little paranoid. When a friend stupidly remarked that, “losing weight makes my teeth look bigger”, expectedly I freaked out. WTF!

Now, I can’t stop obsessing about my ‘deformed’ teeth. I’d look at the mirror all day and moan like some kind of evil queen, stepmother of Snow White, before she turns all witch-y with very bad dentures.

Okay, make it crazy vain too.

So for months now I have been contemplating about getting my teeth fixed, but the cost can be ridiculously expensive. Braces can cost around MYR3000 to MYR6000 and even if your company’s dental benefits would pay for it, it may not cover much of the bill.

Urgh. I hate it when I am broke.

I really want those metals in my mouth, like pronto. I want to have a mouthful of shiny, pearly, straightened teeth when I smile and not these bad, crooked ones that would scare off small kids.

This epiphany certainly put a new spin on the whole self-improvement deal. At first I thought being thinner and slimmer are all the essence of the so called “physically in the top form”. Well, it isn’t. What a letdown.

So next on my self-improvement checklist now is “make jaws bigger to balance the awfully big teeth”.

I figured the best chance for me to develop muscles around my mouth, other than you-know-what, was to do a lot of ‘hippo-cising’ a.k.a mouth exercising/training. Meaning, when I eat, drink, or yawn (practically every time I open my mouth) I take it to the extreme. I open my mouth as wide as possible and repeat the move with reckless abandon. (Warning: small kids probably still wouldn’t come near you)

It isn’t so bad. In fact I really enjoy this, but it’s a long way to go.

Feeling the snugness of my mouth and the increasing tightness of my face, I could hear the unmistakable melody of the training music from 'Rocky' soaring through my head.

If only the other areas of my life were as effortless………..

The Unwavering Truth

Yeah, I think you know who I am. Big guy. Fun. Light-hearted. Full of jokes. I consider myself a star and live in sort of “Mus-Land” where I see the world through ‘the Mus Lens.”

That's right. I'm Mr. I’m-Gonna-Live-Forever. And therefore, I am void of any real emotion.

But now, after few trips to the reality hole they called it hospitals, which you can find these “real emotions” abundantly; I began to think, “Maybe I have indeed lived in my own little world”. It got my buried conscience all riled up.

And let me tell you why.

For the entire part of my life so far, I never have had to deal with the “ultimate truth of life” – Death. I still got all the numbers of the people that I most care about in the speed dial and I go about my daily life pushing the idea that every single one of them bursting with health, that they can still beat 5 guys at one time.

So when 3 days before New Year, I received a call from my brother saying my aunt has had passed away. It shocked me to the core. I kept saying to everybody, “….but I just saw her last week!” But none of that feeble stunned reaction could even compare to those of who were much closer to her, especially her sons.

I had to witness first hand how the people around her; that loved her very much, dealt with the untimely lost. I tried my hardest to understand and to feel how they felt but I guess it was unfair of me to be pretending like that. I could never totally match up to the sheer numbness of actually losing your mother, or parents, for that matter, unexpectedly.

Now speaking about unexpectedly; last Wednesday I visited a friend, who was out of the sudden diagnosed with stage 4, pancreas cancer - only months after involved in a freak accident. I was devastated. Seeing her in that terrible condition, with such a horrible twist of cruel fate, made me all choked up and speechless.

Reaching for her hands, I immediately realized my own ‘deficiency’. I didn’t know what to say or emote. In my head, I was thinking, ‘Do I look grim?’, ‘Do I smile?’, ‘What’s appropriate thing to say?’ It was so awkward and embarrassing. At the end, I just kept my trap shut. Maybe I did utter a single quip about ‘being strong or something’, through gritted teeth. Truth is I was hard-pressed to find a single word to express how or what exactly I felt. I always had my full denial mode turned on whenever I couldn't face the bleak truth.

I know I need a lot of growing up to do. But slowly yet surely, I will come to the point of realization that this life is, in fact, grim and surviving in this world is serious business. It is ridden with surprises and certainties.

And it cannot hide the fact that ‘this isn’t my land, and in this part of the world, I am not the star and I’ll be proven wrong and disappointed, time and time again’.

The List

Urgh, it’s been a year already, hasn’t it?! Another day, another decade, another era just passed by and dayyum, I feel like my entire youth just went out the window. Just like that.

That’s it.

Today I am going to dedicate a whole post on the very thing that bothers me as much as that New Year’s Eve Fireworks a.k.a “weapon of mass pollutions” every year; please, the much-obligated New Year’s Resolutions.

Wait, I know what you think. It may sound tiresome. You might already heard this a thousand times before, whether it was from me, your whining conscience or even heck, your dusty ol’ diary you specially bought last January just for this goddamn list of things-I-should-do/achieve-this-year that never quite take off. But did it ever stop me or anyone else from keep trying year in, year out? Never. So suck it.

Anyway, we are already into the second week of 2011 and trust me by now, half of the people who obsessed about the freaking resolutions have all forgotten about them and another half probably would have died trying or simply, well, just died. So I figured this would be the best time for me to start anew.

I got myself a pen and a ehem, dusty diary and get the juice flowing. And bam, before I even knew it, I had 67 ‘things’ on my resolution list. Ha! Talk about high achiever!

Then I regressed and asked myself;

How the hell did my life come to this point where I feel so unhappy and bitter?

Easy peasy. I have been a one big ungrateful whining baby all along - always took things for granted. I mean, what else would explain that?

My throat felt a little dry.

I went over the list once more, and decided to group all the wish-me-luck lists into fewer big ones. And at the end of this seemingly an eternity process, I finally managed to whittle it down to basically only 6. These ultimate 2011 resolutions are based on the notion that they all must be measurable and attainable to me. Yeap, the key words here are “measurable” and “attainable”, which means something that I know I can (hopefully) achieve or have the slightest of chance of succeeding.

Andvoila (drum roll, please!) it was all coming down to this:

1) Lose 17.4 kg by 1 of December.

2) Update blog at least once a week.

3) Read at least one book a month.

4) Join Toastmaster group by 1 of June

5) Sign up at least one certification program by 1 of December (TD, HR, IR)

6) Clear debts.

Of course I am not stupid anymore and I have learned from my past 12 years of approximately 102 failed resolutions, I need to have a plan, or rather an action plan on how am I going to “make ‘em my b***h” . Okay, that is still work in progress.

I also decided to give these brand new resolutions a little push by sharing them all here publicly. I wanted the world to know because I think I would then take it more seriously. People can see, you can see the list, and the moment I slack off or fell off the wagon, you can just whip my ass. I promise, ehem, I won’t whip your ass back.

Okay, No. 2 checked!

See, it’s not that hard! I am off to a great start.

Change Gon' Come

SMS

Sender: Herman

Received: 11:47:47 am Today

‘Friendly’ Reminder: Dear Blog Owner, your last update was 15^th of December. Your standard operating procedure for blog update is 14 days or less. As of date, we have not received any blog update from you. Kindly be notified. Thank you.

Reply:

Sorry mate, truly, truly sorry. I’ve had a life-changing couple of days and keep up with my blog hasn’t been top of the agenda. Just one of the many reasons I am feeling terribly guilty. And deeply, deeply shamed.

Oh, and deeply freaking relieved in a glad-to-be-alive kinda way too.

You’ll want the full story, I suppose, but it’ll have to wait till we meet again (and trust me, we WILL meet again). It’s wayy too raw for this page. You need to be able to smell the tears.

In an admittedly lame attempt to make things up to you, I’ll say, starting this year, I am a changed man. No more bad food, no debts, no ‘DJ’, no more hates, no more DRAMAS, no nothing that would remind you of the old me. Time has changed, and as the wise man says, so should we.

Yeah, yeah, I know I’ve said it before. Countless times. But this time, I MEAN it.

Right now I can see you’re rolling your eyes towards the back of your skull, but that’s alright. I guess that’s why they invented New Year’s resolutions, so friends can say “I told ya!” to another friend when they screw all their resolutions by February. Ha!

Shit, I’d better sign off before I screw the resolution No. 4.

See you before you know it.

PS

I trust you’re having excellent New Year. I know I am. That being the case, I decided to gather my thoughts on the year ahead and I can’t wait to see you and tell you all about it.

PSS

I’ve come to realize that, actually, this year I am gonna be 3*! OMG!!!!

PSSS

Next time one of the f****r asks me if I remember the days when Whitney Houston wasn’t a crack whore I’ll floor him. Or her, I don’t care.