norwegian woods - the pain, the loss

i just finished reading norwegian wood by haruki murakami.
it gets to me. the prose, the story, the pain, all the losses.
i never imagined that growing up could be so heart breaking.

i could not recall the pain growing up.
not when i was 17 to early 20's
perhaps it was a period too insignificant to me
or perhaps my memory simply failed me

or perhaps, my memory refused to remember
maybe that's why the book gets to me,
coz the loneliness resonates with me

i was never an okay person. i suppose.
i was living in this glass cube, so ever delicate
but you couldn't see me that way, delicate
you saw a fierce young lady, temperamental,
almost fearless, and a bit of a loner
a lady with her own way of thinking, of handling things,
her own way of looking at things
a quite beautiful lady, in fact, oblivious to her own beauty

i grew up thinking myself so ordinary, and yet so out of synch
i get alone by choice, always preferring solitude to crowd
i could only manage small group, when my audience was 2 people, max
more than that, i'd disappear into the back ground.

i was always scared of being wrong, for not being able to conform enough
while at the same time i cling to the uniqueness in me, that i shall bow to no consensus
being with people actually scared me.

so that was it, i guess, the core of me growing up
so insecure, so timid, and yet putting up a brave front
a storm of doubts within, headstrong without
i wonder if i had succeeded in fooling myself more than i fooled people

no one, taking  a look at me, would ever thought for a second
that i lack confidence
but that was who i was growing up
lacking self confidence:
confidence that was fragile like butterfly wings
shattered at the slight of wrong touch, elusive all the times

isn't it good, norwegian wood?

mutant ants

i truly believe those ants in our home are mutants.
need some proofs?

here's some:

1. they can eat through plastic
2. they can eat their way through the rubber insulation of a jar

examples:

• most snacks are packed in plastic bags. more 'modern' snacks may be packed in aluminium paper. so far, the metal ones are found to be intact. but the plastic ones? nope. we put our snacks in a cupboard. those snacks were still neatly and (supposedly) safely contained in their plastic packaging. lo and behold! when we open them, ants were all over the snacks; some package we opened even contained a sort of dust nest. yikes. but awesome as well. in their bid for survival, they've managed to evolve (no, mutate would be a more appropriate word. evolution needs a very long time, mutation does not) from munchers of all things natural to munchers of whatever. let's hope their mutation does not continue to munch all things metal, too. 
• we were content in our thaugt that glass jars with their rubber insulated metal cap are safe from this fascinating creatures. we were so wrong. we opened a jar of peanut butter, neatly contained in glass jar and (supposedly) securely topped with screwed-on rubber insulated metal cap. and there we found ants. swarm of them. happily trodding on the oily surface of peanut butter. close look reveals that there are paths in the rubber insulation where the ants have munched their way. clever creatures!

so, that left us with how to keep our snacks safe from them. lock-n-lock is one way. so now i'm a big fan of their products, and pour whatever snacks that come in plastic bags into them. they are safe. 

for now. 

hope they don't mutate enough to become lock-n-lock munchers. 

'we are ants. resistance is futile'