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Thank God Its Friday.. Not ! ( and a trip to the pasar )
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i sat down at the table and stared at my sad bachelorette lunch and was suddenly so overwhelmed by a wave of self-pity that tears stung my eyes momentarily before i laughed myself for being so absurd.



for a while i pondered about my existence. i'm sitting at home half naked, finding stale newspapers a joy to read and sobbing about lunch while other 20 year old are out there winning Miss Universe pagents or swindling money from their sugar daddies.

yes, this is my very simple home-cooked lunch consisting of steamed fish, stir-fried dou miao and good ol' porridge eaten the traditional way, with chopsticks.

damn healthy ( and bland ) fare, yes. but because i am stricken with a very bad viral infection, i seemed to have lost interest in savoury food.

been a damn long while since i cooked chinese food because pasta is just so chop-chop ! u just have to boil the pasta, heat up some pasta sauce from the bottle, toss then together and sprinkle a generous dose of oregano and its a meal under 5 minutes.

i woke up this morning feeling extremely under the weather and for the next hour i wondered who i could call at such an early hour to pour my grievances to ( and getting the person to take me to the doc's ) but i could find no one.

d ? he left yesterday for a week long working assignment in manila. sigh

mustering up my strength i dragged myself out of bed and cabbed it down to a clinic. it was only 11am when i got out with a new supply of meds and i was feeling faint from lack of breakfast and the feverish sweat plagueing me.

so i decided to troop down to the wet market ( hahaha weird decision considering i should have just went home in my state ) and little-miss-hygienic-and-pampered almost threw up as the acrid stench of fresh produce hit her.

but i love being in wet markets. i love being spoilt for choice, to be able to prod and pick at my vegetables instead of them being all wrapped up ( and looking wilted ) , like they always are in supermarkets.

and wet markets are bachelorette-friendly too ! u can get a small sliver of beef and perhaps just a handful of fresh beansprouts.. ta~da! a meal for just under a dollar. you certainly can't get that in supermarkets because you have to buy stuff by "family" bulk.

anyway.

i got conned by the happy and leery fishmonger who sold me half a small garoupa for $4.50. knn, you think lao niang dunno anything huh ? i should have haggled it down to $4 but i was too sick to argue. besides he was so blatantly ogling that i didn't really want to bask in his presence any longer.

yes i think its rather weird for a girl my age to be spotted among a sea of bad perm jobs and even worse eyebrow tattoos, looking rather conspicuous in her shorts and tee.

did i mention how it really makes my day when i surprise the aunties by replying them in my faltering but decent hokkien when they try to speak to me in english ?

vegetable seller : girl ah, this one, fresh fresh ! you want ?

me : mai lah , wa ai dou miao nia. li wu bo ?? ( nah, i just want dou miao. do you have 'em ? )

vegetable seller *indignant expression* : wu wu , zi tao ! buei kak ! ( yeah, here ! eighty cents )

i used to accompany my grandma to the wet market weekly when i was much younger. every saturday without fail we would stroll through Bedok Town park to get to the huge market at the other end.

even as a young girl i had already acquired an impeccable sense of hygiene so i would tip-toe my way around the pools of murky water and the occasional dead prawn. because i hated the stink of meat so much, i would wait for her at the 'dry' produce side of the market and steal bits of dried shrimp to eat. which one really shouldn't do because god knows where they came from and it should be always washed and soaked before thoroughly cooking it.

and she would come for me with a packet of fresh soya milk and a stick of you tiao in it. ahhh. those were the days !!

anyway.

its 2.30pm now i still feel like shit. because of the infection my pus-phlegm smells really funky and just by opening my mouth i could smell it. fucking gross ! the fever has subsided somewhat but i am still very much malaise-d. there goes my friday.

the doc said it'll be a week or so before i'll actually begin to feel better. what the fuck. one whole fucking week.

which means alot of incessant blog entries without any focus. hahaha.

and d's not even around to pat my head to sleep. i miss that old fogey already !!