tell me about it

Sure I’ve done lots of things in my life that I regret. It comes from having tried too hard in my younger days to be a wild child and a rebel, to break as many molds (and rules) as possible while scandalizing the life out of my parents and friends. Sure I’ve done things that I never want anyone to find out about. Sometimes I do tell my close friends. Confidantes. And you know, I bloody expect it to be kept confidential.

I’m changing my password for my locked entries and have deleted some entries away.  Because now a group of people I loved as brothers and best friends now will have nothing to do with me, and I’m helpless to defend myself.

I’ll admit I made mistakes, I admit I did things which are the source of the problem anyway, but I didn’t expect your judgment on me to be so harsh, so quick and so one-sided. It cuts to the core that none of you actually came to speak to me to find out what was up, and I had to be the one to message you to ask what I’ve done wrong to merit being ignored and cut out of your lives like that.

I should have told you – but you should have come to me first.

Too bad life doesn’t have a damn save and load function. There are so many things I’d do over and change, but I can’t. All I can really do is hope you listen to the explanation I gave you, trust me on it, and forgive me in your own time. I don’t know what else to do and seriously, I’m so damn tired I don’t know if I have the strength to do anything more.

I wish it could have been different. I wish I’d been a better person. All I can say that is I make mistakes, I learn from them, and I’m growing from them. Maybe in ten years time you’ll understand how sorry I am that things couldn’t have been different.

Are we at war tonight
Will there be angels whispering to midnight
Don’t wake when lightning strikes
My heart for you is true
Let no one take that from you
Time is running tight
Can’t change from wrong to right So I’ll close my eyes and dream a little
Just like how we used to be baby

Its time to say farewell now
No need to cry of feelings
Oh it’s alright
I’ll end the end of lies

Heaven grant me one last wish I beg you
Let me say these words before I go

I will love you till the end of time
Every breath of mine
I’ll hold you by my side
But I’ll rest in peace
My sweetheart would you
Let me die in your arms with you
Only you can stop the rain tonight
Only you can change my world from black to white
So I’ll close my eyes and dream a little more

Keep the faith of mine
Don’t let it go
You’re the only reason
That I’m growing cold
What would I do
Without you

So my last ever inter-hall Scrabble has ended and I still haven’t managed to go unbeaten.  I don’t think anyone realizes how much this really irks me.  That five-point loss is going to haunt me forever.

I wish I had something to show for my four years of inter-hall Scrabble, but all I do have is the silver medal from my first year which I personally wasn’t really responsible for.  In some way I don’t know why I feel like I’ve let my first-year team down; they’d sort of entrusted the future of the team into my hands and I don’t have much to show for it.  Sigh.  All I can say is that I’m so, so darn glad I found Eddie in my second year, and that we had enthusiastic people like Yansen and Kenny and the girls who trained hard for this. 

Hey, in such a difficult grouping with Hall 6, 7, and 9, for us to come in a respectable second place in Group B is really not bad at all.  And if we had had Kenny around on the second day, we might have had more of a fighting chance against Hall 13, and my desperate kamikaze ‘Plan C’ seating tactics would have worked out better.

Seems like there’s some sort of curse our hall faces; every year without fail we lose our last match 4-1.  In my first year we lost the finals 4-1 to Hall 7.  I remember Mark telling me that he hated winning his own board but losing the round, and this year that feeling slid between my ribs like a thin-bladed knife.  I’d thrown everything I had at Plan C and I’d really hoped it might work.

But I suppose if you asked me?  I feel better knowing it was Hall 13 we lost to, because I know for a fact their team is stronger than mine.  Plus, I feel better losing to the hall that eventually won the entire tournament, rather than one that goes home with the silver; and also the fact that it’s N*’s hall.  I’d have felt awful if some other team had won.

At least we got into semis this year so that we’re seeded again for next year’s tournament and won’t face Hall 13 in the same group.  That’s my consolation.

Well kudos to Eddie kor for a well-tournament (better than last year anyway) and here’s to me maybe coming back next year as chief ump, hoho.

Bingos for this tournament – my score sheets are back in my own room so I’m not sure what my stats are, but I did bingo at least once every game with natural DACOITS my favorite bingo (in the first game, too), and BONECUTS my only phoney bingo (because I couldn’t find a place to get SUBTONE down), in the only game where I managed three bingos (RIVeTING and BATTENs).

Watched ‘Curse of the Golden Flower’ last night – escapism from a hellish IHRG in which I have found myself unable to finish school with a single unbeaten run in IHRG Scrabble.

Oh, the pain, the pain of a closed board and a 5 point loss.  Everything was going wrong!  I’d lost my lucky pen! He refused to use my rotating board!  He played a closed board and blocked off my bingos one by one.  Absolute cruelty.  Couldn’t catch up when he finally blocked my last bingo outplay.  Sob.

So ‘Curse of the Golden Flower’ isn’t all that bad.  Alternate titles that I thought of:

• Curse of the Ever Growing Boobs
• Zhang Yimou Hired Half of China as Extras in This Movie
• Jay Chou Actually Moves His Mouth When He Speaks
• Watch Jay Chou Die!
• Watch Gong Li’s Boobs!
• Ooh, Lots Of Boobies.
• Big Bulgy Bosomy Bulbous Boobies.
• Gyuuhhh, Boobs.

Christmas pressies Christmas pressies!

Such nice pressies this year!  On the top of the list in no particular order:

1. My brandspankingnew Scrabble board bag and tile bag wooo!  No more clumsy lugging of board around!
2. My bronze rotating earrings stand! Mommy always knows best and she rawks!
3. Borders gift card – an oldie but a definite goodie!
4. Spending Christmas with a special person :)

Happy birthday to my sweet sixteen baby sister.  You grow up way too fast.  I know this for a fact because you borrow my clothes and I’m only taller than you in heels.

Merry Christmas to all my Gentle Readers.  Another year has passed us by like a caaahaandle in the wiiiiind!

Hope you’ve all been very good girls and boys.

I know I have. *wink*

I recite the order back at the customer, who is gaily decked out in a red, yellow and green Jamaican beret with fake dreadlocks cascading down his back – with a matching shirt.

“One bottle of Havana Club, four diet Cokes, two Asahi bottles, one pint of Heineken and a pint of Strongbow cider.”

He grins at me and bursts into song.

“AND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREEEEE!”

—

Guy Right beams at me as I put down their drinks.

“Thanks love,” he says, curling his hand around the pint glass.

“Cheers,” I reply (cheerfully).  “That’ll be twenty-four bucks, guys.”

Guy Right looks vaguely surprised.  Guy Left waves his arm expansively at me.  “No, no, he’s running a tab,” he informs me, and I glare at the misinformed captain’s order for a second before Indian Chap presses a fifty-dollar bill into my hand.

“I’ll take care of this round,” he tells me, but Guy Left shakes his head.  “Put it on the tab,” he contradicts.  I hold up the note, but Indian Chap seems disinclined to take it back.  Before I can say anything though, Guy Right, who has been studying my face all this while, suddenly pipes up again.

“You know, Beth,” he says, reading off my nametag, “you’re not pretty, but there’s something about your face that’s very attractive.”

I raise my eyebrows at him as Guy Left throws up his hands in horror.  “You don’t say that sort of thing to a lady,” he chastises Guy Right.  “And anyway, I think she’s beautiful.”  He smiles cherubically at me, but I’m still trying to digest what Guy Right has said.  My battered ego decides it’s better for me to take it as a compliment, so I just grin and tell them that everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.

Guy Right tries to make us understand what he means.  “No really, she’s not what you would call conventionally pretty, but there’s just something very attractive about her -” but he doesn’t finish because Guy Left roars at him to shut up.  Still, I sort of understand what Guy Right means, so I smile empathetically at him.

I’d almost forgotten about the note in my hand.  I hold it up again.  “So guys what do you want me to do with this?”  Indian Chap still makes no move to take it back, and I’m a little perplexed.  I try a bit of teasing.  “If none of you wants this I’d be happy to take this as a tip!”

Guy Left grins.  “Go on then.  It’s yours.  Keep it.”

I shoot him a look of surprise.  “You can’t do that, it’s his money!”  I indicate Indian Chap with a tilt of my chin, who has kept silent all this while, though judging by the look on his face has been greatly amused by all the verbal byplay.  “You can’t give away someone else’s money!”

Indian Chap finally speaks up.  “Oh yes he can,” he deadpans.  “He does it every day.  He’s a banker.”

“Oh, that explains everything!”  I laugh.

Guy Left looks at me.  “Seriously, take it.”  He folds my fingers around the note.  “Merry Christmas,” he says.

I look at Indian Chap, and he just smiles at me.  On the other side, Guy Right is still examining my features.

Finally I relent, and I incline my head in acceptance.

“Thanks, you guys.  Merry Christmas to you too.”

I go about my rounds to the other tables and by the time I get back to them, they’ve waved me over and placed the bill folder in my hand before kissing me on the cheek goodbye.  I crack it open after they’ve left – and it’s another ten-dollar note.

I’m tired and PMSing like crazy – it never fails to surprise me (and not in a good way) how fast four weeks pass and that time of the month rolls by again. It’s positively nauseating. What I hate most is that it sneaks up on me like a soft-soled thief; I never realize it’s here until it’s too late and I’ve gotten weepy and unnecessarily emotional or thrown a needless tantrum over something irrelevant, inevitably wounding someone in the process.

I suppose it’s those closest to me who get caught in the crossfire, as it’s you guys I’d take it out on without really meaning to. I apologize, because PMS makes me itch for a fight and turns my emotions into a stomach-churning rollercoaster. One minute I’m sweet and fluffy and happy, the next I’m sobbing or throwing things at people. Hormones. What can you do about them.

Today was classic, although I do pride myself that I managed to rein myself in somewhat.

I was walking down Orchard Road in a last-minute attempt to buy Johanna birthday and Christmas gifts, and I was mentally cussing myself out for being a perfect moron and going to Orchard on no less than the Saturday evening before Christmas. Ugh, the stench of humanity.  Despite the festive holiday season of love and cheer I was thinking decidedly uncharitable thoughts while trying my best to push through the uncooperative crowd. Uncharitable thoughts, like if I had a shotgun you would have no head, and all I want for Christmas is for you to get out of my way.

I guess it was a good thing N* wasn’t with me after all.

Saw an absolutely gorgeous kimono-style silk dress in Warehouse that I just had to try on. My new policy is that if I really really like something, I’m going to try it on first before I look at the price, especially if I know it’s going to be a wallet-busting number. I’ll upload the sneaky phone cam photo I took of the dress when I get back to hall. Suffice it to say I put it on, cooed appreciatively at myself in the mirror, steeled myself to check out the price (telling myself if it cost less than a $100 I’d buy it) and then nearly passed out when I saw it cost $204.

Played Narcissus for a few more minutes before reluctantly slipping out of it and returning it to the salesgirl. Sniff.

Back home at last; Dad very sardonically messaged to ask if he needed to file a missing-persons report on me. So here I am back for the Christmas weekend. I love Christmas :)

Egg nog and presents!

Just a note to say: I wish you were here.

Sometimes the littlest things can really set me off.

Now I’m awake and cold and grumpy and wishing I were back in my own bed.

Sigh.