Meet me in Kentucky Field

[The Ruse and the Caper – Coyote Theory]

So, continuing my tradition of writing about things a week later…

Last Thursday, I went to Mela’s place to hang out as usual before her work. The original plan was to go to Knox but I felt really lazy so I begged to just stay home and order a pizza, and watch FMA. Everything was fine, we ordered the pizzas and were waiting for it to be delivered, when we noticed Meg missing. She came plodding back with a small golden thing in her mouth. Naturally, I went to see what it was.

To my terror, I realized it was a piece of chocolate. I quickly snatched it from Meg, but found no tooth marks. We gave Meg a stern telling off, and went to find where she’d gotten it.

We went to Mela’s brother’s old room, him having just moved out and the room being just a place to put things, and found some bits of foil with bits of loose chocolate. Our worst fears flared: Meg already ate some chocolate before we caught her.

In a panic, Mela tried to make her throw up, but dogs didn’t really have a gag reflex. We called up her brother but he couldn’t drive us to the vet, so we thought we’d wait a bit to see what Meg is like.

We ate the pizza, and saw if Meg acted differently. She sort of wiggled about but it wasn’t unusual. Once she hobbled off into the next room, and Mela thought she was crawling off to die. So we called up the vet, and had a family friend of Mela’s take us to the nearest vet. There, they gave Meg an injection to make her throw up, and it took a while, so Mela and I went to her friend Andrew’s house, where Eileen, who has a car, could drive us back.

We watched some weird funny show from Japan, then got Eileen to drive us back to the vet and back to Mela’s. On the way back, a very subdued Meg stuck her furry head out the window and let the breeze fly through her locks, and seemed to have gained her spirits. Unfortunately for her, Mela had to go back to work, so we left a whimpering puppy in the study.

But it was pretty scary when we found the chocolate, even though in the end Meg barely ate any. I almost feel like she’s a little bit my puppy too.

Alex

My baby don’t mess around

[Hey Ya! – Outkast]

Today we went to escape the heat by going to Chadstone for the whole day. Mela arrive late and sad because she accidentally slept in, and then had to leave her new puppy Meg (which I met yesterday, and whose love I will slowly but surely earn).

We had some coffee and then curry for lunch, then she felt sleepy so she lied on my lap to nap. I felt bored so I took out my phone, opened up the eReader, and popped my amazingly light phone on her amazingly flat forehead and read Sherlock Holmes.

When the people started to congregate around the foodcourt, and it became apparent that the seats needed to be vacated, I woke Mela up with my tactful and accidental voice-command program which, on loudspeaker, screamed right into her left eyeball: WHAT WOULD  YOU LIKE TO DO?

We walked around for ages shopping, as I always do when I’m with her. She ended up buying a very nice tank top and a dress which we both nicknames Woodland Creature because it looks like what they would wear. When she was trying on the tank top, she was a bit iffy because she was worried how her arms looked in them, so I said through the changing door “if you say that one more time I will come in there and punch you.” I didn’t know a store assistant was right behind me and she laughed.

We got tickets to see Tintin in 2D, and had to switch seats three times cos our original seats sucked. I also managed to whinge some popcorn out of Mela, but it was so salty that we ended up eating only half and then cuddling in the over-aircon’d theater. The movie, dare I say, is astounding, and somewhat pioneering in terms of animation. The sheer detail that they paid attention to, like the way the hair blows in the wind, the expressions in the character’s eyes, the physics, and yet the limits they managed to stretch the suspension of belief with the action and the drama…all at the same time staying as true as they could to a 1940s cartoon series as they could.

After Tintin we visited Cindy at work, and I laughed when I saw she kept the sticker on her cap. Then we had dinner at the sushi train near JB, then went to say bye to Cindy before going home. Now, she’s playing guitar and singing while on mute, refusing to let me hear, and I wonder how her dog is…

Alex.

A stranger to some and a vision to none

[From Yesterday – 30 Seconds To Mars]

Today I nearly fainted at work, which wasn’t so fun. It was weird, because I’d eaten in the morning – albeit not a full breakfast, but definitely enough to keep myself from blacking out – and I’d drank water. But it was humid, and maybe my body was just suddenly reacting badly. Halfway through taking an order, everything turned into those stars you see when you rub your eyes too hard, except it didn’t go away when I screwed my eyes shut, and then I couldn’t hear anything. I barely called out to my manager – thank goodness I had the nice one – to take over before stumbling to the back (somehow missing falling into the fries machine) and in the end I had to sit in the office for about 15 minutes and another manager, the shift manager, came in and gave me some nuggets to eat even though I wasn’t hungry. The food didn’t make me feel better, but at least I stopped blacking out, so I did the rest of my shift with a raging headache and steadying myself on the register.

Then I met up with Mela for an early dinner and hanging out in the city. She held my hand so I would walk in a straight line, and we went to the Original Lolly Store to stock up on some sugar, because according to her I was probably somehow low on blood sugar. Then we went to Menya in the small alley with Boost and the Harajuku Crepes, and I ate my entire bowl of ramen. After eating we went to our spot on Southbank and then I felt hungry again, so I had McDonalds (shush! I ate a small hamburger only, okay? And we tried Steamed Bun for the first time and it’s so soft and glorious I’m going to do it for every time I order a non-large burger) and then took the Pakenham home so it would be easier on her to take a bus home.

When I got home, it turned out Dad bought a new TV today which is digital capable, so Mom could watch the Aus Open seeing as our old set-top box broke. But we bought a TV for the kitchen, and it turns out that the antenna we were using for the kitchen TV (as there is no wall mounted antenna there) is either not strong enough or blocked by our brick house, so I could only get the analogue signals and still no digital signals. I guess we have to move the TV over to the lounge room for now so she can watch tennis… The TV is also capable of playing stuff straight from a USB port, so I think when she’s not using that TV I might just plug my own hard drive in there, and free up my laptop screen…but I don’t know, I have so many things plugged into this laptop that moving it around will be quite a pain! We’ll see.

4 months coming Thursday, but we haven’t really got anything planned. On the train home today she fell asleep in my arms, and it was quite comfortable – if not slightly bad for my back as I was sitting sideways. Maybe on Thursday we’ll just go to her house and snuggle, like we did for our 1 month.

Anyway also going to watch how I feel tomorrow, because I am eating loads tonight (I still maintain my bout of faintness isn’t from under-eating, because I’ve been massively hungry before, and it was a completely different feeling), but that might be because my body is trying to heal from something so it needs energy. Might sleep earlier tonight as well, and seeing as the baby is working tomorrow I can’t go out, so I’ll sleep in. I hope it’s not anything bad, but I’ve consumed a lot of sugars and salts today, in case I lost them through sweating, and I’ve also eaten all my noodles meaning I’ve got the carbohydrates.

Alex.

I can’t wait to fall in love with you

[Summer Love – Justin Timberlake]

So I am aware that I haven’t written much for a while. Mostly, life has been pretty routine – I meet up with Mela, I go to work, I have some shifts that are terrible, some that are fun. Mela and I have had a few small arguments but nothing close to a fight. I’ve gotten her Christmas presents and she’s gotten me some as well.

As you can imagine, last night was NYE 2011. Putting aside the “oh my God it was only, like, yesterday that I went to the city for NYE 2010”, I was pretty excited because we’d gotten a hotel room together in the city. Awkwardly, the room was right next to my work, the very place where I can’t be seen because I was “home sick”, so I spent a lot of time cowering behind Mela when we passed my work in case the managers were about.

We met up at Glen, as usual, and took the train up. There was still time before check-in, so we had lunch at this Vietnamese place, except I felt like fried rice, so of course I ordered a Pad Thai Fried Rice at a Vietnamese Pho restaurant. After eating our fill, we took the tram down to our hotel room, checked in, got all excited at the prospect of a night together in a decent for how much we paid hotel room. But not 10 minutes into our honeymoon beyond the threshold mania did Brendan call for me to pick him up from downstairs. There was a bit of a whinge on Mela’s behalf who, understandably, seeing as we hadn’t seen each other properly in a few days, wanted some time alone first. But I got Brendan, and we hung out in the hotel room for a bit watching TV until we went to Coles at Melb Central to get some snacks because I remembered being hungry the year prior. Took almost an hour to decide what alcohol to buy and ending up buying a tiny bottle of butterscotch schnapps which I will say now, sucked. We passed by Dani and Ben eating crepes outside of Harajuku crepes, thus seeing a 2nd year of accidentally coming across Dani in the city on NYE. We went back to the room and watched Man Vs Wild until Brendan had to go see his friends. So then Mela finally had her time alone with me.

At around 7:50, 8, we headed off to go have dinner with Jen in Richmond, seeing as it was also her birthday that we were counting down to. We went to Pacific House on Victoria Street, and since we arrived late, they ordered already. It was fine, because the food was amazing. Once again, we ate our fill and with bulging stomachs hugged Jen goodbye to catch up with my uni group in the city.

Caught up with Jacky who was standing waving his arms in the middle of Swanston Street looking for us, and we went to Gin Palace (a small bar just off Lt Collins) for a bit. Jacky brought along an entourage of our lunch group, including Clare whom I haven’t seen in what felt like forever. We didn’t stay in the bar for long, seeing as it was already 30 minutes to midnight. We went back to Fed Square, and on the way, Mela, Little Sam and I lost the rest of the group. After a good quarter of an hour desperately pushing through crowds and trying to get calls to go through, I finally got through to Clare, who told us where they were. Running like mad people and hurting, I am sure, numerous merry-makers, we managed to run from Fed Square, through the crowd and down to Southbank opposite the Langham in around 5 minutes, arriving to where the group was a mere 2 minutes before midnight.

Missed the countdown, as we always do on Southbank because we don’t have speakers there, but we knew that we’d ushered in the new (and final?) year when the fireworks flew into the night sky. We watched in awe as this year’s (which was much better than last year’s) fireworks lit up the Melbourne skyline, and then we watched in amusement and some degree of horror as the top of the Art Building spire caught on fire, sending massive flaming debris down.

Mela and I trudged back to our hotel room, somehow managing to get there before 1am. We had our showers, then snuggled up in bed with the schnapps which were quickly abandoned. We ate some bread and ham that we bought, even though she was still full. We hugged a lot and told each other many sweet things before feeling fatigue pull its veil over our eyes by 2, and going to sleep.

Sleep was a bit difficult, for me at least, because it was quite warm, but it was nice to be able to cuddle the one you love at any given time during the night. We woke up and had some more cuddles and sleepy talking before her phone went off to let us know that we had to get ready for check-out. Quick packing up, a few moments of Ben 10 on TV, and we said goodbye to our first hotel room together.

The day was already heating up monstrously, and we ate congee at the same restaurant as I had last year with Annie, Anna, Josh and Julia. Then we took the Cranbourne back to Oakleigh, and said a long and sad goodbye as we took our respective buses. But the goodbye wasn’t for long, because I can feel that 2012 is going to be the year where I don’t (and really shouldn’t) feel like I am alone at any time.

Alex.

I am human and I need to be loved

[How Soon Is Now? – The Smiths]

I am running a bad habit of writing things once a week and recapping.

Last Friday, we caught up with Cathy, Jalex and Sheina for karaoke, and I brought along Mela to showcase. They were all very accepting of her, and when Mela went to the bathroom, they said to me very seriously “you better hold onto her!” Afterwards we went to hotpot with Mela’s friends in Box Hill, and the guys ensured that we ate our $25 dollars worth.

On Sunday I had my dreadful 9 am shift, which meant that I had to get up at 6 to catch the first train into the city. I pumped myself full of sugar and caffeine, and faced my morning shift – which was VERY relaxing, just very early – with the charisma and energy of a squirrel on speed. Went back to the Glen to hang out at EB Games with Mela in the last hour of her shift, then had lunch before heading off home.

On Monday, I went to Knox, as I always do, before Mela’s shift. SHE BROUGHT MY N3DS! She was originally going to make me wait until Christmas to have it but, what a nice girl! We walked around, ate food, then sort of just hung out in the library and I read my instruction manual cover to cover.

On Tuesday, we went to Chadstone to hang out with Jen (not mine, hers), and saw New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t BAD, but comparing it to Love Actually, it had its pretty fall-through moments. The storylines weren’t really explored enough, that it felt rushed, and there wasn’t this nice sweet ending. I did like that Zac Efron didn’t get the hot girl, but this sweet cute middle aged woman, and I did enjoy that some of the big names were just side characters – with the exception of Abigail I-forgot-her-last-name-the-girl-from-Little-Miss-Sunshine, whose awesome acting skills were stifled by her rigidly stupid role as an impressionable teenager, caked in makeup so she’d look like her “mom”, SJP – who, course, had years shaved off her character, being paired up with Josh Duhamel.

And, today, I went to Mela’s house to watch Love Actually and cuddle, before going back to Glen for her work. I got Mario Kart 7 3DS and my hand started cramping from playing it so hardcore.

Tomorrow is a rare day off – because it’s so hot and I’m starting to become short on cash – and the 2 days after that I have work, then it’s Christmas! This year I totally forgot to watch Lovely Complex. I should dig out the disks that I burned it onto and watch it ASAP!

Can’t wait til our own NYE.

Alex.

Graffiti decorations under a sky of dust

[Runaway – Linkin Park]

Not the best song for the situation but that’s shuffle for ya.

Overdue post: Monday just past saw the 3 month anniversary of Mela and me!

We met up at Glen station with warm and happy hugs, excited (but not surprised) that we made it to now, and without issue too! Took the train up into the city so that we could go see Mai at her store for Mela to give her what Mai ordered from UO. I ended up putting on the Beats by Dr Dre headphones they had on display, plug it into my own phone for better music, and playing Fruit Ninja on their display iPad while Mela and Mai talked. At least, they talked for a while about Malaysia (the former being from, the latter going to), but after a while, when they realized I can’t hear them, they just called me names.

After saying bye to Mai to let her work, we took the train down to Windsor station where Dani has taken me a couple of times to let Mela op-shop. We strolled along Chapel St walking into any store that caught Mela’s fancy, but at the end of the day (spoiler alert) she didn’t find anything that suited to her likes. We walked up and down Chapel St, reaching Jam Factory and then back a few times without realizing it. It was no surprise, then, that I was extremely tired.

We had lunch at Lucky Coq because I’d been wondering about their $4 pizzas – and they lived up to expectations! Gourmet and crunchy, but full of flavor, and come on they’re 4 bucks! Washed it down with some Dapple Cider, and took a few photos with Mela (or, well, we took photos of each other).

We then we to Topshop which was the original intent of going to Chapel St, along with the op-shops. It was crowded in there with many many late-teens, early twenties girls walking around, and quite a few of them attached to their boyfriends. Mela and I tried on two things each, but the price-tag (in proportion to how much the clothes wow’d us) coaxed us to meekly pass the clothes back to the exhausted looking sales assistants.

After Topshop, we strolled back down Chapel (yes, I know…) after a misunderstanding about where I’d wanted to go to get some iced-coffee/milkshake (I wanted Soda Rock which was just a stop past Jam Factory, and Mela thought I meant back down near Prahran station or something), so by the time the confusion was cleared, we ended up getting an ice coffee at this place which boasts that theirs is the best in town, but really they just had really sweet whip. We trammed back up to South Yarra Station, thus completing our lap of Chapel for the 4th or 5th time, and attempted to take the Cranbourne train home, except the signs were off and we stood on the wrong platform for about 15 minutes.

I took a new bus home, and realized that it took at least 10 minutes off my trip. It led Mela and I to agree that in the future when we wanted to go to the city together, we should just meet up at Oakleigh station, which is easier on the both of us.

So, my feet were throbbing and sore after two long shifts over the weekend and the big day of walking, but no, I had to pluck up the strength to go out once again for Tuesday…the dreaded and long-ago-promised viewing of Breaking Dawn Part 1.

Long story very short, I started live-tweeting and being sarcastic about the movie at the start, but when Mela got upset at me (don’t get me wrong, she’s not a Twilight fan, but I think she disliked having to sit next to someone who was constantly complaining) I stopped. The movie was…yeah anyway then we had some food and got our ears pierced together (one ear each) before I kissed her goodbye for her work.

And, today, once again, went out to her place so we could buy Cathy’s presents (and she got me a 3DS, but refuses to let me even see it before Christmas…don’t worry, I’m getting her a Wii, so it’s all not-awkward or anything) and hang out. She ended up being called into work last minute, and accepted, so we went off at around 3.

Tomorrow I work a rather long shift in the evening, and on Friday is Cathy’s get together, so I don’t really get time to just sit down and take a break until Saturday…an entire week since these hectic days started!

Oh, and Mela’s friend Andrew helped me get Skyrim running, so I’ll be trying to play it in the coming days, but I’m not so confident yet. It’ll just take some time! I got used to FFS X2…right?

Alex.

No one’s so sure if the crime had a reason

[Me And The Moon – Something Corporate]

9 days and I forgot to write things!

The week past has been pretty routine – free time? Catch up with Mela. She has time before work? Go to Knox and hang out. On the Friday just after the previous post, I went to meet a lot of her friends when Mela held a BBQ at someone else’s house. In the end, Mela and her friends cooked while I sort of sat there and looked useless. On Wednesday just past we went to Tiffany’s house for a small group catch up, where Sonam attended, and it was amazing, because Sonam exists still! We literally did nothing at her house – just ate, lounged, played Monopoly Deal, then just sat there for a long time watching YouTube videos. It was very hot this week so we mostly tried to stay home. Yesterday, I took Mela to meet Catherine, who was so cool she was gonna get her Ps next week. I am very jealous.

Today I guilted Mela into coming into the city after her work to have dinner with me after my deathly 4.5 hours of dining shift. We had Red Silks, of course, and then sat in Fed Square while it rained all around us. We huddled under the one umbrella and kissed. I think it counts as kissing in the rain!

My feet are about to drop off.

Next week I have a 9am shift on a Sunday, meaning I need to take the first train of the day and be there half an hour early…or be late. Still, it was that shift or an 8-midnight shift the night before, and I wouldn’t even be able to get home!

Things with her are going so smoothly that neither of us can believe that it’s going to be 3 months on Monday. Has time flown so fast? At the same time, I find that day by day I am useless without her – when she’s at work, I carry conversations with myself (or the teddy bear that represents her) to keep company, because I am now so used to having her around. I think if we really count the minutes, we more or less spend every waking moment in contact with each other – and when we’re not I think it’s safe to say we both are thinking about each other. My phone’s gallery is simply filled with photos of her and/or the teddy bear. I suppose you all can say that I am a very dependent and clingy girlfriend, and yes, I am, but I feel so normal when I call her up first thing in the morning, and her response is so warm that there isn’t a moment when I get the feeling that she may not want to talk to me. Well, there are some moments, but I try to ignore them…I’m sure she doesn’t go AWOL on purpose – and I’m sure there are times when she’s wondering where I am when I totally forgot to text her or something.

On the friends front: I haven’t had the chance to really hang or talk to Clare in ages, and I miss her a lot. I think after this coming week which is a bit packed, I will try to hang out with her, maybe a whole day! Wow large dose of Clare. Josh and Anna I’ve also had little chance to really see, they’re both very busy people, and when they are free I am not, which is sad. Jen and Annie I see regularly, but since the holidays have started and they’re both working more, not so much. Brendan and Cindy I haven’t really seen since the last Chadstone shopping trip, and although Brendan and I text back and forth a bit, it’s not really connecting kind of conversation. And, Dani received the birthday parcel that Mela and I sent, and hopefully she’ll be back in Melbourne soon!

There are a lot of other people who I have not seen in a long time due to Mela – I guess I’ll have to take the on the title of “one of those“.

Alex.

Is you is, or is you ain’t my baby?

I don’t know where the song is from, but I got it from here:

Today I went to Mela’s house so we could watch Tom and Jerry together – seeing as she’s never really seen it before! I had the collection of the award winning eps, so we watched it. She made me popcorn, and I threw in some of the Maccas spicy shaker salt I had. Then we ate sticky rice and curry puffs. Then we watched TVD on her laptop for a while. Then we cuddled and I tickled her til she kicked me in the head.

Life is just really good right now. I shan’t complain about any of the small inconveniences.

I love her!

Alex.

P.S. Summer is upon us (as the sheets of rain and biting wind that accompanied me today reminded me so), the song titles commence.

Then it said ‘mew’

On Friday night was Dani’s birthday dinner. On the train ride there, Mela pointed out that in my previous post, I’d gotten the sequence of events wrong, and Monday actually happened on Tuesday and vice versa.

We arrived at Melb Central late, and were worried that we’d held everyone up, but it turned out that everyone else were just really, really late, and we decided on having some hotpot for dinner, picked up Soph, and went to Little Lamb on Russell St.

Carmaine and her boyfriend dropped by for a few minutes but declined to dine with us, saying they were too poor. So, instead, Dani, Mela, Soph and I pigged out on the hotpot, aiming to eat more than the 25 dollar flat rate we paid, and we all chatted. April came along a bit of the way through and, despite not eating, stayed to talk. Mela and I realized that we were sitting on one side of the table while eating, and the other side of the table sat the three halfies, all of them good looking and none of them eating.

Saturday was Brendan’s party. Cindy and I went to Stud Park to shop for jello-shot ingredients with Mela, and then we went to Sam’s Warehouse to get shot glasses. It was cold and raining, and my hunger drove my caring girlfriend to begrudgingly buy me a sausage with bread.

We went to her house, and the other two made jello-shots while I went on Tumblr. Cindy accidentally spilled one shot while we were arranging them on this ceramic tray, and so not to waste, the three of us took turns slurping up the semi solid goo with a straw. Ah the dignity that we forfeited.

After that, we went to Brendan’s house early, having nothing to do at Mela’s (they watched Whip It for a while but I complained). We met the kitty ‘Doc’, and we played with the kitten for an hour or two until more people arrived. Brendan got this weird blowup guitar as a present, and the jokes of him blowing up something large and pink were numerous.

Now, this party was the one where I was meant to drink, but something went odd with my tolerance, and I ended up on that platform of one-shot-too-many, and my darling was put to the test by having to take care of me while I threw up for about an hour. But, hey, before that the party was great! Apparently I danced, we ate pizza and chips, played with the kitten some more when someone brought him back downstairs. Arthur and Valia (newly coupled and all that) were being super cute and made fairy bread. We sang along to karaoke.

In the end, Mela’s older brother drove us home. Having work the next day, I did my best to hydrate and sleep, and then went to visit Mela after she finished her shift the next day before Jen (from that other time with the surprise visiting at work and all that) who was going to have lunch with Mela drove me to work.

I always like Brendan’s parties. I will aim to like all of it without throwing up of course. I missed out on Truth or Dare too!

Alex.

Lazy Dayze

Yesterday was a long day…of NOTHING! Well, not really nothing…I did go to Mela’s house to give her some new episodes of shows and a bunch of movies she wanted, and we watched some of those episodes together. Then in the afternoon we went into the city to meet her cousin’s friends (who she in turn befriended) who have heard about me but haven’t met me.

It was quite nice – Mela really wanted to try the risotto I harped on about at Giraffe, so for the second time (did I write about shopping with Jen and Annie on Tuesday? I don’t think I did. It wasn’t THAT eventful, just a nice catchup with good friends) in as many days we went to Giraffe. Mela’s friends really liked the cafe, which I think helped them to like me a bit because it was all “wow good taste” and stuff.

We played Bullshit after eating – Mela barely managed to finish half of her risotto because she said it was too filling…which I guess it was but still – and I was winning until Mela took me down and gave me all the cards…and so knew what I had, therefore she knew when to call me out, causing me to lose more. On the other hand, I really didn’t want to call my girlfriend a liar, so I never called her – or anyone – out. We left in a hurry when we realized it was getting late.

And in fact, it was getting quite late, or at least it seemed that way to my parents. They had to give Mela a lift to the bus stop lest she wait alone for too long, and on the trip back told me it was very troubling for them to go to these lengths – as in, to go an extra 5 minutes out of their way in an area they knew well. Sigh. Sometimes I wonder how they even manage to call me selfish with a straight face.

Today I spent a good half a day sleeping, then waking up and watching the weekly shows, then marathoning Charmed while snacking and drinking beer and eating ice cream and hugging Mela bear. It as unproductive and I feel like I should accomplish something, but at the same time it’s nice knowing nothing is due and I’m not doing anything wrong.

I missed her while she was at work, though, which confirms the whole attachment/abandonment issue. We also confirmed today that I have a control-problem when I checked up her bus times for her. I suppose there’s something for everyone to work on everyday, and seeing as my day was uber unproductive, at least it’s nice to have personality shortcomings to work on.

Speaking of projects…I’m not saying that my Writing Project is coming to an end prematurely, but I haven’t really been working on it – nor getting the inspiration to do so – for a while, so it’s on a bit of an extended hiatus until I get my mojo back.

Alex.