Another Victoria's Secrets

I went to Senayan City yesterday with my sister and Oma. We accidentally bumped into Yodi's family who just buried their cousin Reynato, who died earlier this week, and the whole family was there for lunch. Yodi opened the Tortuga, special for its spicy ribs. I ended hanging out with the family for couple of hours, then joined Oma and Clemy again after that.

It was such a relieve to find this pair of stretch blue pants in Stradivarius, remembering that I'm lack with trousers lately and my only jeans left is the torn acid jeans from Pull & Bear. I need to have something more decent for more formal occasion, so there I bought the pants. Somehow I just couldn't resist the temptation on buying the tosca scarf, the one rather similar to Rebecca's in Confession of a Shopaholic. I love how it add up some color to my pale skin and I think I'm gonna wear it quite often from now on :)

This morning I awoke by the news of the death of Steve Paul Jobs, visionary founder of Apple, Inc. and the mastermind behind Pixar Studios and board member of Walt Disney Company. His great creations and products are everywhere around me now, especially the MacBook and pink iPod Shuffle that it brought me a huge sadness when I found out he was dead due to pancreatic cancer at 56 years old.

I had never known him personally, of course, but I am very sad indeed. His death is surely mourned by the whole world, thanks to his great revolution in technology via Apple products that affected many fields, especially on design and music. I really don't know what kind of tech world I'm living in without an Apple product in it.

As more of my friends are getting married lately (it's been at least one couple per week since the beginning of September), more were dead, as well. Last Saturday my Mom's cousin, Uncle Nico, passed away due to his lung disease, then Reynato, cousin of Yodi, Yoan and Andy, passed away from the HIV last Monday. The latest was Uncle Johnny, cousin-in-law to Mom, died last Tuesday after his several times' dialysis.

I watched this movie with my sister last night: A Little Bit of Heaven. Marley (Kate Hudson) was diagnosed to have an ass cancer and living her last months of life with the most valuable things in her life, after having just fun all her life before. Then the question came to me: if you were at the Marley's situation, would you hold on to love, or push it away in case to "save" someone's heart?

Further more, if you were Julian (Gael García Bernal), would you stick around the one you love, or leave them to face the death alone? Maybe I would try to keep love away to keep the one I love from getting hurt if I were Marley, but if I were being Julian, I would definitely stay around. But then again, it's such a lie that people can keep the one they love away, so even if when I'm at Marley's situation, I guess I'll give in to love eventually.

I am now more or less at Julian's position, loving someone who is slowly dying. Terrible things is that he pushes me away from his life and didn't give me any chance to make us both happy (for I'm pretty sure he's feeling the same way). He's trying to "keeping people's life safe" by not being near him. WTF. I mean, how can you save someone's life when you are tearing your and their hearts apart?

I'd follow Julian and Marley here, holding on to love, no matter how small time we have, but it's not the quantity that define how great a love is. Love is whatever you are feeling about a person, regardless how dull the future on being together seem to be, regardless how the rest of the world are against it. Most importantly, love can not be pushed away. The way one feel it is the way it is. We can't control it.

I am wondering where life would direct me to after this. If I'm about to stick around this dying guy, would it really ruin my world? Would it damage my life? How if it makes my life worthwhile instead? Why don't we just take the chances and see where it lead us to? Why are we so afraid of the unknown? Guess we'll never know until we try, right?

I've spent almost a week now at my aunt's place in South Jakarta, started last Wednesday when I came from Bandung. I had to babysit my 13 y.o. cousin and drove her here and there. I ended up sick now, had an almost 15-hours hibernation last night to pay off all the tiresome for the last couple of weeks.

It was such an exhausting weekend indeed, for I had to drive all the way from the south to Kemayoran in the north to attend the food expo at JiExpo. It was about 1.5 hours driving there at 1 p.m. and a total 3 hours of driving back at 5.30 p.m. and continued the night chatting with Rachelle till 3.30 a.m. for she was staying over.

I woke up at 7 a.m. the next day and had to attend Lita's holy matrimony at the west side of the city and drove my cousin to PIM before going to the Sampoerna building for Lita's wedding reception. That night I drove my sister back to the west, picked up my cousin near PIM and went back to Cipete. Thank God I didn't have to wake up too early on Sunday, but still it was another long driving day.

I drove Angel to her dance school, met with Herdi and Rachelle at Dia.Lo.Gue, Kemang for their interview with Atiqah Hasiholan, then back to the dance school, spent the afternoon at Marché, PS, then went to Dharmais Funeral Home to pay last visit to Mom's cousin, Oom Nico who died the day before due to heart disease. It was just a super-tiring weekend for me.


But during the tiresome, there are always exciting stuff in between. Apart from Lita's grand wedding, I also met new friends from Herdi and Rachelle. They are Advan and Ojan, both are from creative industries and it's always nice to meet such nice new friends like them along the way :) Thank God for giving me so many friends!

Last Saturday, one of my best friends, Lita, was getting married. I attended both of the holy matrimony (with my cousin Angelika) at MKK Church and the reception (with my sister Clemency) at Sampoerna Strategic Building. It was such a glamour wedding and I'm so glad to see my woman looked so happy when she finally tied the knot with Oscar.

It was funny how people were asking why didn't I be her maid of honor or bridesmaid, for we are best friends for almost 10 years now. Actually Mom didn't allow me to become a bridesmaid no more, because there are some saying that it could make my love line heavier in Chinese beliefs. Well, buy it or not, I surely don't wanna end up like Jane at 27 Dresses.


Anyway, I was so happy because Livia and Ester could make it to Jakarta, tho Irma couldn't go out of her house for the next two weeks due to her post-natal condition. I also met Ria and her mother, W+Yoe Lee, Denny+Christine and daughter Charissa, and surely Donny+Nina and daughter Daniella. I didn't meet anybody else there tho I stayed there till the last minutes, perhaps because I was focusing myself with my best friends around.

I am discussing about life with few friends lately and I came to some conclusion: I am complicated and my life shouldn't be compared to most people around me. Perhaps it's the understanding level I am now, not mere knowledge nor job but what my mind can bear. I am thankful and grateful for this, but also very much troubled because of it.

The thing is, the guy my heart is involved with lately is not the kind of 'normal' people in general and he is having problems in his life more than other guys in his peers do. For me, he has a one of a kind way of perspective on seeing things around him. His complicated way of thinking made his mind look so beautiful to me and his whole package just made him a beautiful soul.

As more friends are getting married around me, I always look at them a little jealous, because "they are in love, where am I?" (The Weepies) And to see my latest married old friend, Mona, as I browsed through her old pics I thought, how easy one's life can be while it's much harder for the other one? My other best friend, Lita, is also gonna get married within three days, and surely, another "how simple her life is" goes.

But as I discussed my recent worries with Cheryl, she's agree that I am capable to deal with the things God trust me with, and therefore gave me harder cases. Cheryl said, as I could manage problems with Ara so well, I should be able to manage things with this new love, new case better. God wouldn't give me someone to fall in love with who isn't right for me even tho it's wrong to the world, right?

I already knew all of these for quite some time actually, but when I am faced with the fact and feeling now, I am thinking hard and asking myself: "is it worth it?" Because this would really be against the current, tho I've been well-prepared for things like this earlier. Now I am in the middle of a dilemma, to go forth with all of the risk or wait till another boat come by (Chasing Pavements.)

But hey, life is full of risk and the fun slips in between, right? So I guess I'm not gonna chase any pavement now. I guess I just figure out where I should go home to, and I need to claim it soon ;)

For the six nights I am in Bandung this time, I meet friends everyday. I really made the best of my limited time and enjoying every single bit of it. Even on Sunday when I didn't go anywhere, my old good friend Andrea came to get Lita's wedding invitation. We ended up talking for another 4 hours at my living room, from nostalgia to discussing life matters.

Last night Cheryl picked me up with Raffi and we had dinner at Legoh. By 9 p.m. he had to go home with Gita, his sister, so both of Cheryl and I were dropped at Camden and we stayed there for about 4 hours till Patrick came to save the day and drove me home.

Today I got more companies at home than ever before. After Adi's visit at 3 p.m. I got Cheryl and Agatha came by and we had such fun chat and laughters, and even more with added presence of Romulus and Marino later. We were laughing loudly till 1 a.m. at my terrace and they all went home just because we ran out of beers.

But when they are all home, I now feel lonely again. This is perfectly what I hate about love: I hate being rejected and being alone when I am in love with someone. It's just so much better to feel nothing at all than to feel once again the longing and uncertainty and stuff between reality and feeling. The fact is, that I am too afraid to ask and to be rejected, and too scared to lose.

And after this, I know I'd be back closing up and pulling away, being comfortable with just myself and drown with my busy days in Jakarta, a city far far away from sentimental stuff. I guess I'm much better in that area than to play with my heart. So maybe it's best for me to get out of this city once again and just bury myself with anything I can do in Jakarta...

My best friend during high school, Mona, was getting married with Cheryl's friend from church, Michael, so we both were invited to their wedding on Saturday. Unfortunately Cheryl and I just had a long night before and we woke up late. Thankfully Patrick was awake already and he drove me to Sierra to attend the midday reception.




There were also long gone friends attended the wedding since Mona and I were close about 10 years ago. Now we're living different lives but remain in touch. We didn't stay long at the reception and continue the discussion at my house. After Patrick went home, I got the task from my aunt done, washed the car and had a rest.


By almost midnight, Nirwan and Rinaldy fetched me and we went to fetch Rony and Marino at their hotel. We arrived at the Sobbers around 1 a.m. and thankfully the party wasn't over yet. I met Pilly, Dimas and many of Cheryl's friends there it was just so fun I hadn't had fun like that since X2-Equinox days on 2008.


By the way, Michael+Mona's wedding is one of the few weddings I like, to mention Bex+Jules' is still on the top. I don't really like going to weddings but these are the ones I will attend for sure. Perhaps it's because they are creative and fun people and I definitely want something like theirs someday!

Last Thursday I drove around South Jakarta to get my things done at Pela to get coffee samples from Javanegra and Pondok Indah to get Auntie Agnes' klappertaarts I needed to bring to Bandung. Then I headed to Cipete to meet Cheryl and I drove her and my mom to Bandung at around 1 p.m.

At around 1.50 p.m. the traffic was slowing down at KM 26, so I hit the brake slowly. It was still 3-4 meters far from the car in the front and I got time to look at the rearview mirrors and saw the car behind me--about 4-5 meters at the moment I was looking--wasn't slowing down at all, so I screamed cuz I really didn't know what else to do.

There it went, the hard crash from behind that shocked us all. Mom was almost asleep and Cheryl was looking at me for we were in the middle of a very nice discussion at the time. It wasn't the first car crash I was in, but this time I was on the driver's seat.


So it happened that the car from behind was crashing ours and pushed ours to the car in the front and made our car like a sandwich in the middle. The man from the red Hyundai Getz in the front was upset but when he saw that our car got worse condition, he went on and disappeared.

The guy who was driving the silver Toyota Avanza admitted that it was all his fault that he wasn't looking and didn't hit the break, and he offered us compensation for the mess he caused. The tow truck came and brought his car (which happened to be a rental car) and we followed them to Deltamas exit at KM 37 to finish the problem.

It happened that this guy's office was at Deltamas so we made the deal at the parking lot which was done after 2 hours since the accident, and we headed back to Bandung after a short coffee break at KM 43 rest area. We arrived in Bandung at around 6.00 p.m.


After dinner and shower, I went to Irma's house to greet her newborn baby girl Jesselyn Naomi Chen, who was born on Sept 19, 2011 at 10.30 p.m. By the time I went there, Hendra and his mom were visiting too. I'm so happy to see how happy my best friend was, that her dream to have child finally came true.

I drove to KFC Riau after that to meet Arief who bought a pack of Javanegra's 250g Enrekang single origin coffee from that I brought from Jakarta. We ended up chatting and having nostalgia for another two hours. By the time we were done, Cheryl told me she was already at Camden, so I went to see her there.


It was so crowded in the bar and we barely got no seats. Luckily Cheryl got some friends there who already got a table so we joined them. Not long after, Romulus came, then Nirwan, Rony and Marino. Later, Patrick joined us and we moved to Circle K Dago when the bar was closing. It was past 5 a.m. when I got home and I was so tired. But I was so happy as well :)