A Piece of My Mind

I’ve been dealing with a lot of “when” questions lately that I really think I’m gonna run out of answers and just end up blurting “it won’t be soon before long” just like Adam Levine said about Maroon 5 latest album (yes, for the last three days I’ve been committing an affair from John Mayer by taking him off the playlist on my iPod, replacing him with Adam’s irresistibly sexy voice).

Anyway, back to the whole when issue, one of the most popular questions that I’ve been getting for the last three weeks (mostly from my friends): “When’s your book gonna come out on the book stores?”  This is an easy one: next week (dan mumpung bulan muda, jangan lupa beli yang banyak ya hehehe).

Next week will also mark my fifth anniversary working for this bank  (God, time flies!).  Never thought I won’t be tempted to be another “kutu loncat korporasi.”  It’s only honest to say that I’ve not always been really good with long-term commitments.  My “ikatan dinas” with this bank has been over for a year now, which means I don’t have to pay the “in-breach-of-contract fine” in the ridiculous amount of five times what my car worth - if you can grasp the concept in your mind (I barely can).  Think of it as a divorce without the obligation to pay the alimony.  Sounds good, doesn’t it?  Some of friends who have actually changed the name of the company on their business cards (at least once) keep on asking me: “When are you gonna follow our foot steps?”  Then I remember something that my friend said: “If you’re deciding to leave your company when you’re feeling unhappy, then it’s probably not a very good decision because you can’t guarantee that it’s not the emotion that drive your thought.”  He then said that the best time to decide whether you’re gonna leave or not is actually when you’re feeling happy and comfortable with where you are right now, because then, it’s the logic that drive you, not plain emotion.

(I stopped for a while as I was about to write the next sentences, wondering if my boss is gonna read this hahaha).  Honestly, I am happy and comfortable with where I am right now for more reasons than one, hence this is the best time to pull or hold that “resign” trigger, right?  And I have been tempted and lured with better packages (let’s just say that I won’t have to join Shopaholic Anonymous if I were to decide to take some of those offers).  But - I can’t believe I’m saying this - money is not everything.  There are other divine things like opportunity to grow, career path, opportunity to take on challenges, position, location, health coverage, and of course: the people that you work with.  And my professional life has been more than rewarding.  The other day I just heard that I was thisclose of being recruited by other directorate in my bank.  It sounds very interesting, but it also means leaving business banking, the thing that I’ve been doing for the last three years and already beginning to be very good at.  Somehow it feels like being a heart surgeon who’s suddenly told to perform pap smear.  But it also feels like having to choose between “sticking to what you’re very good at and eventually be a specialist” to “trying out new challenges to see how good you really are at everything else.”  What would you do if you were me?

The next one is such a cliché, I know.  And I hate to fall into it.  But professional life does take its toll on your personal life, one way or the other (especially when you spend almost twelve hours at the office every single day).  “When is the wedding date?”  I bet this essential question will come up at least a dozen times this Lebaran season. And replying it with “tunggu aja tanggal mainnya” one time too many is just beginning to sound so lame.  But then again, you can’t really predict when you’re gonna meet someone who can stack up to the one man that you measure everyone against.  Then, you ask, why don’t I just marry the one man that I measure everyone against?  That, sadly, is a whole other story that deserves its own book.

Here’s a blunt confession: I do judge a book by its cover. As far as I’m concern, if an author or publisher cares as much about the outside look of a book as the inside, then a brilliantly designed cover should say a lot about the content (not in anyway to imply that my post-it inspired cover that I designed myself is as gorgeous as my writing hahahaha).

Anyway, as I fell off the wagon of my compulsive-shopping diet last night (and this afternoon for that matter, when I found this breathtaking sky-blue sandals, which by the way costs less than the book! …. Aagh, it’s just like an alcoholic first martini after 12 months of AA sobriety), I bought a little brown book entitled The Handbook of Style. It was sealed, so I couldn’t really have a peak of the inside, and honestly, I don’t even have the slightest clue who the writers were (do Francine Maroukian and Sarah Woodruff ring a bell? They’re not Anna Wintour, that’s for sure), but I fell in love with its cover: it looks like this deep maroonish brown crocodile skin matched with a touch of pink in the corner box of the title. And - I’m not just saying this to prove my own theory of book cover - as soon as I finished two minutes of reading the first pages, I must say: this is money well spent! The 163 pages - which I finished in just two hours of caffeine break at Starbucks with my friends - all filled with very simple yet essential tips on beauty, fashion, and style.

I’ve always been a bit judgmental towards other how-to books (they’re usually just a collection of bullshit advice which you can’t really apply in real life), but this one is really different. The Handbook of Style should be the bible of any modern women anywhere, 37 commandments you should follow if you want to avoid committing the crime of fashion. My favorite chapters: How to Get the Haircut You Want (which explain my fanaticism with one particular stylist), How to Find the Right Frames for Your Face (I think Lisa Loeb is reading this), How to Choose the Perfect T-Shirt (oh those beautiful Zara v-necks), How to Spot a Comfortable and Sexy Shoe (beauty is painful, but any tips debunking this, I’m there!), How to Carry a Computer Bag and Still Look Good (another impulsive buying: this gorgeous brick orange small laptop bag from Sumdex), and How to Travel and Arrive in Style. For a highly voguish style book, this one doesn’t even harass you to buy a particular brand (like us mortals really have the guts to max out our credit cards to purchase a Coach bag). Instead, the articles just describe the type of style that matches your hair color and eye color and skin tone and body type.

So allow me to selfish and suggest the two must-have books the next time you’re stopping by a bookstore: The Handbook of Style and A Very Yuppy Wedding … my book, of course

It was a windy day in Los Angeles, and I had just been on a 20 hours of no sleep and crappy airlines food and this guy sitting next to me who couldn’t stop talking about where he’s been in the world. It was more like a show-and-tell because there he was with his passport showing every single page with immigration stamps on it (while all I could think of was: “When is this guy gonna shut up?” I’m still not ready to listen to another line of: “here’s where I went skiing in Swiss, and here’s when I traveled to Spain.”)

I was tired, not feeling really well actually, but still when I got off the airplane, and walked into the huge Tom Bradley International Airport, there’s this sudden rush of energy charging inside of me. The first time I saw a Spanish cleaning lady, the first time I saw a huge African-American police officer, the first time I held a quarter in my hand, the first time I walked out of the airport building and breathe the city of angels’s cold summer. That was the first time that I traveled to a foreign ground.

And there’s always something so ethereal about the first time you do something. Somehow, no matter how small it is, you just remember every single feeling and sensation as you experienced it. Sometimes down to the very minutes and seconds that it happened. On that day in the summer of 1995, I remember everything like it was yesterday. The tingling feeling on my face as a breeze of clear Los Angeles air touched it. This weird adjustment in my ears and my brain as I caught another line and another line and then another line of people speaking in foreign language around me. The sensation is eternal. That’s what I love the most about traveling: you will always have many first times that leave you tingling with excitement.

But of course, you don’t have to get on a plane or hop in a bus and travel somewhere new to experience those first times. There were all around us. The first time you saw the man that you later fall in love with. The first time you heard him laugh. The first time you tasted Indian food. The first time you ate sushi. The first time you drive a go-kart. The first time you fell off a tree. The first time you heard the cry of the child that you just gave birth to. The first your own baby touched your finger. The first time you bungee-jumped. You, and I, remember these first times like you remember to breathe. It’s funny how our brain works, isn’t it? I don’t even remember where I put my pen that I just had a second ago, but I do recollect the first time I saw the ocean (1981, I was only four years old, our family just moved to a small town called Tanjung Gading as my dad worked there, and on the first weekend my dad took me and my brother to see the company’s harbor. Clear, deep, dark blue ocean around me, with some groups of ubur-ubur floating on the water). Remember it like it was just this morning.

A couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to experience a whole new first time (yeah, lucky is the word. You’ll understand why as you read through this). The first time I was admitted to a hospital, the first time I was injected with real needles, the first time I was head-scanned, the first time I was infused, and the first time I went under the knife. As some of you might have heard, I had a nose surgery called septoplasty to fix the deviated septum of my nose that had been causing me frequent problems (to put it mildly). The first time I lost my consciousness, and the first time I woke up from anaesthesia (which was hell! Thank God I had genius doctors and surgeon who left me with no visible scar whatsoever).

Don’t you just love those first times? The good ones, yeah for sure, but also the bad ones (which of course, you wish will always be the first time and no second or third time). Because in moments like now, when I’m sitting in my car with my eyes closed as we cruised the impossible traffic of Ramadhan afternoon, after a long tiring day at work, I still have a hint of smile on my face, recollecting some of those first times from the back of my mind. You now what I’m thinking of? The first time I … oh, well, that memory is too private to be shared here

So which first time put a smile on your face today?