Gesamtkunstwerk

there's this little thai restaurant tucked away in a nook of section 17, called my elephant. but the stupid name was the last thing on my mind last week. i was dead tired but hey, u still need to eat, and it being a rare occasion when we venture out to dinner (with sue-ann too, ey?!), who am i to decline? so i found myself there, mostly lifeless and silent, leafing through the menu like i'd never seen one, and gawking at the chic decor like the proverbial deer in a village.

i dunno if the food was really good, or just a nice change. but when u compare freshly-cooked green curry chicken, papaya salad, tempura vegs and warm fragrant rice... to our regular diet of maggi, roti, ramly burger, the try-your-luck tandoori and stale bain marie fare... thaaat's oral therapy, if anything. i sipped the 5000-degree tomyam and it trailed down my gut like liquid sunshine.

good food can heal your soul.

it's like good sleep. i remember once lying in mine own bed, fully flat on the futon, with pillow and blanket and consciously thinking, i am happy (2 seconds later i was dead to the world, and another 2 seconds later it was daylight and the daily grind over again, but that's beside the point).

shit i fucking feel happy for these small things. am i becoming goddamn emo or what.

but back to my elephant. it was drizzling when we came out, though i came out feeling much much much better. went back to the office, call it a day? it was more than a day already. wh and hy got to wow-ing. ch and sm went through photos. i switched off my pc, heated up my herbal med, and sat alone at the pantry. thinking of oral therapy. the wet and secret kind. the deep and breathy kind. the nibbly kind and the lingual kind. the musicofthenight kind.

they thought i went home after that.

(machinegun fellatio!)

sometime this week, after a superlong day at work, i was lying wide awake at 5am+. thinking, thinking, thinking, of that email i never wrote. this was in my first arachnid days, after i'd been introduced to all the 7th floor - and 3a too, over lunch. that first, initial, mass email when u proclaim your presence and say hello. so i said hello.

i had nothing else to write. green freshie after all. but i did have stuff to write about the others. while still strangers, i'd had lunch and 'storms and fags with some... but announcing your quick first impressions can be a risky gamble. what i had for a sure bet though, were the names of all 20-odd people on the floor. and what my unsent letter was, was basically that complete list:

hi there, i'm new here, and i'm liking the good vibes already, nice to have met u all, and i mean all of u, here goes, in order of your desks... [nerdsx22 + knotsx4]... apologies if i'd gotten anyone wrong, pls do come and tell me so i can buy u a teh ais and get to know u better, and help me out here fellas, does so-and-so have a boyfriend?

what first impression would that have made? if it was crafted copy, not just a simple hello? would the perceptions of me, the friendships, the whole scheme of things, have turned out any different? the turnover is high and fast, but ex-colleagues remain acquaintances in the very least. and the world is small - that makes the industry frikkin tiny. for a fact, i came across as the cold lansi type to some people, like syam for instance... who's since become my kaijie.

i fell asleep on that funny thought. the very next day/night, syam said to me, jook. (yes, jook with a fullstop, it was that serious.) jook. why're u still here? what is it that's keeping u from leaving? i see u frustrated a lot lately. u've even shouted at me a few times. (i never meant to, swear to all the gods!)

so we had a little heart-to-heart and bottom line is... i'm still learning. i've not done all there is to do. though i Have come a way since last year. i take the new stuff as challenges, i solve, learn, move, forget the early frustrations, i take the repetitive drivel as practice, and i don't stress over it - and as it appears i've also picked up shouting. hey c'mooon, i don't shout. but let's face it, raising your voice sometimes is an affirmation and safeguard of your sanity. don't take shit. let it out, it's healthy. like i do with dawn.

dawn and i have a practice of trading curses. her email came in one day, minor changes to be made, and those minor changes were longer than the actual job brief. i flipped open msn and went, siendouhai! to which she replied, fandoulan! then came the matchats, mahais, makais, dius, du-9-lans, cibais, pokais, u get the idea. we keep this going, though at times i'm really swearing for real. i'm sure she is too. then we go smoke in the stairwell and laugh about it, and suddenly we're no more copywriter and ae, but... human. it's like being unplugged from the matrix.

yes work can be dehumanizing. some jobs i get i'm through with in 10 mins, while some jobs take months of changes/editing, which make me question what i'm worth. sometimes i feel like just another cog in the machine, u try to be brilliant, and at most u'll end up just a shinier cog. but ask me at the end of the day, and i'll say: i'm still learning, and i do like my job.

point is, copy as i've come to know it is calculated, soulless and designed to sell. but it's just the job, the little gear in the great engine of churning dollars. looking back at that unwritten email, i know if i did, it'd have been sincere writing, not copywriting. and right now, for whatever my copy's worth, i still love writing.

this rambling monologue may be meaningless shite to u, dear reader, but it does tell me i still love writing. and that is good to know.