The Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth

A.k.a The BIBLE.

No, I didn't come up with that. Father Johnson said it but I don't think he coined it either. I'm writing about it cos 1. I think it's catchy and 2.Because it was Bible Sunday yesterday. This is the weekend of the year where they tell you that it's time to stop using your bible as a door stop or a very comfortable wrist rest and start flipping those pages cos they hold the key to your salvation after you leave this dodo-land.

I think God must not have thought very highly of his creation to leave such a thick instructional manual behind. He really could've helped us out by summarising it but no, knowing the masochistic idiots that we are, we need to pain it out before we start appreciating anything, before we value it.

I read somewhere that there is no mistake in this world that someone else hasn't walked it before. That you can always learn from someone else's mistakes. But there are some like me that refuse to listen, to learn the hard way, whether by ignorance or sheer stupidity and foolishness or plain old stubborness. People like me learn the hard way. We pay the price of course, and sometimes the cost can be too high but we have to pay it anyway.

I used to blame God alot. For the mistakes that were my own. I realise now they were necessary to break me. To get rid of that terrible rebellious streak. I have heard him say to me that he loves me very much but I have to learn obedience. At any other period of my life I wouldn't have listened but I am at this stage in life where I am tired, weary and he chose this time and moment to speak to me. Because he knew I would listen. And I have known peace. For the first time in many many years, I am at peace. I am happy. Still restless in terms of job fulfilment but within, I am at peace.

There are times when the ugly stuff catches up but it doesn't render me totally useless anymore. The pain and regret used to be debilitating, so much so that I can do nothing but cry and blame myself and wallow in self pity. Now I face them better, the tears still roll but inside, it's not so bad anymore.

I try to read the Bible more these days and there are some really interesting characters in there. It makes me realise that I am not alone in my humanity, in my mistakes and my fallibility. That since time immemorial there have been others like me and God loved each and every one of us. Material things seem so unimportant and distant when you're filled with peace and blessed with his love. Everything is put into perspective. I think people still think I'm queer but I don't care anymore. It doesn't matter anymore.

I am blessed.

The bane of my existence

Is without a doubt, my skin.

You know that living, breathing organ they say is the biggest one you have?

Yah, that one.

And blessed are the ones who hath good-skin genes for they will not spend plenty of money and waste precious time agonising on why their arses suddenly grew a red, shiny monster when you need to wear a bikini bottom the next day. Or why they would wake up with new "family additions" when you have a bloody interview that same morning. In prominent view of course. But more often than not, they just ambush you for no bloody reason.

I am ranting. Which tells you that I have no good-skin genes but instead have inherited from my father's side of the family the extremely sensitive, eczema prone, acne prone skin genes and the freckled spatter of my mother's side. Whoever said you can't have freckles and zits at the same time obviously did not research extensively.

Oh. Like it was my mother who said that.

Sometimes I fantasize about having perfect skin. Like Sammi Cheng or Cate Blanchett in those SKII ads. I wonder if you can buy it off ebay. You can anything there right? Unlike a secondhand liver, which once sold or donated, you can't grow another one, this organ is self-rejuvenating isn't it? It'll grow again what. If I had perfect skin, I'd advertise. You make a buck and your skin just grows again. It's like an organic mass production factory!

But of course if that were medically possible, some smart-alec derma doc would've done so already. And me being not-so-smart only thought of this now.

I refuse to resign myself to my genetically-imposed fate. That's why all these derma docs make so much money from me. And yet, despite my diligent persistence and rigorous routine , I still have skin that even the Salvation Army wouldn't take as a donation, much less ebay.

=( mo