Marsha Maung: I write. I love. I live

The kids are in this play area and I dump them there while I saunter around aimlessly in the shopping mall. Nothing captures my fancy because (my friends know this) I am not much of a shopper. Not that I am a careful shopper (only in a pub am I dangerous) but I don't like shopping for things simply because.... The only thing that can capture my fancy are books. So, I head to MPH and since I don't have membership with MPH (I have one with Popular instead), I grab one book, some wrapping paper (for my new books - they're going to be CLOTHED!!!) and off I went to sit down on a bench overlooking the.... TRAFFIC . Ah well. Better than nothing. I sat there and read three pages before someone said, 'Excuse me, Miss. Do you have five minutes?' I looked up and went Aw, fug . Hit on by some marketeer, no doubt. ' No, Miss. I am not interested. I am very....er....busy ,' I said waving my book around. The only people I will actually entertain when they walk up...

I remember a long, long, long, long, loooooooooo.....ng time ago when my kids were so easy to please. In order to work, all I needed to do was to switch the TV on and slide a Barney CD into it and off they go! Bless the purple dinosaur....as dumb as it is. To make things worse, it's got one of the sorriest excuse of a theme song that goes somewhere along the lines of you loving me and me loving you and we're all a big effing family or somefink. OK, fine, it was lovely and easy to teach the kids to sing. How wrong can you get, right? And then there's also Steve with his cursed green striped shirt. Actually, I didn't Steve was dumb coz he was, personally, someone who was witty and a bit of wise-crack, actually. I remember he impersonated Elvis one time. It was lost on the kids but he was a hoot to the parents! But honestly, he is either blind, sick or totally off the rockers. Blue is right there, duuuude! Right there! Her a-s is sticking right out of the sofa....

When one is missing a 'Y' chromosome, I believe we have a right to b-tch at things like this...especially when it concerns another person who is ALSO missing the 'Y' chromosome. It's a disorder, I'm telling ya. But I'm not doing that here today. That's Miley. And she's smiling...what a refreshing sight because whenever you see celebs' accidental meetings with the pappies, they're either scowling, showing you their middle finger, running away, looking the other way, walking MIIIILLLEES away from someone they've purportedly just had lunch with, hidden behind a cap/bandana/hoodie/umbrella or hand, throwing a slipper at you or simply growling obscenities. Some time back, I wrote about Hugh Jackman's gracious personality and this seems to be the style that Miley's adopted. As much as I love Ryan Gosling and Robert Pattinson, boyz....there's a lesson here. When questioned and b-tched at by Perez Hilton about her being a ...

5. I love the sound of bickering kids 4. I get to (lovingly) pick things up after my kids are done with them. Like, aaaaaalllllll day long 3. I get to cook. I love cooking 2. I get to cook. 1. I sleep in the kitchen. I love my kitchen.

I am envious...very, VERY envious about local Malaysians who work Malaysian time. We, Malaysians, get so many days of holidays all year round that we literally have more holidays than working days. Kidding. We don't but I wouldn't be very off-mark when I say that we have more or less as many holidays as we have working days. This year is a little special. I had no idea how we managed to cram longweekend after longweekend after longweekend and they're all crammed into Aug/Sept! And for this Hari Raya (muslim celebration), the government decided that an 'extra special' day of holiday should be given....for reasons unknown. Being a Malaysian, I should be happy but I am not. I work from home and let's just say that my working hours is pretty much 'international'. My holidays follow no particular country's hols except for maybe....the United States since that's where most of my clients are from. So, while we celebrate Chinese New Year or Deepava...

Seriously....one year ago, I wanted to learn this song. One year later, STILL learning how to play this song. This is sad....

I'm funny this way....when something hurts me, I don't talk about it. I brood . Notice how I've never written a single word on Michael Jackson's death? Nada. Zilch. Because the Moonwalker....the friggin' monwalker is GONE !!! And then I get another hit in the form of Patrick Swayze. Swell, just swell. Now, I am missing a Dirty Dancer too?! Man, what the - someone's shittin' me, man! It's a bad habit that I have to change because it must be weird for someone so vocal to say nothing about something like this. I have to stop pretending that it doesn't hurt me. I have to stop pretending that the world is the same way it was before something like this happened. That's called running away, isn't it? Yup. So it took me...how long....to write this? With my Dirty Dancer, I sorta got a pre-warning in that we knew he was fighting something (really hard) and he might win...but he might lose. In a weird sort of way, we're 'prepared' fo...

That's Taylor Lautner (the guy) kissing Taylor Swift for one of their movies, if I am not mistaken, My Valentine, or something. See, Taylor....the boy Taylor looks like he's about to pull away while girl Taylor is too fair for her own good. I think both Taylors are quite good-looking, and they have this very unique look....got to do with the slightly slant-y eyes. No, not the cina-pek (slitty Chinese or Jap) eyes but very....cat-like eyes. Hang on, Taylor...I mean, he-Taylor plays a wolf...which is basically a dog, right? He does look like a dog....in a good way, of course. Heard that he-Taylor is a very nice guy. He's got nice chest but he's not even legal in a pub yet, so....bleh. And she-Taylor is incredible! Simply incredible for her age. I want her to be my daughter but she's kissing at this age...in public....with a pup at that. Sorry, couldn't help that. :-) Don't be mad!!! Come on. I spend ice-cream. If it's any comfort to you (for dissin...

One short post before I zzzzzzzzzzzzz If I wasn't sure of this before, I am SURE about it NOW. I mean, it's crazy but I think there's something seriously lacking in the young women of today. Maybe it's just a Hollywood thing. Maybe all young women are like Megan Fuxx. I've had some friends (IN REAL LIFE) tell me that they don't like girls their age or girls who are younger because they scream a lot, shop a lot, talk about shoes a lot, don't know how to cook.......blah blah blah. I just went.....sigh.... But it looks as though it's true, though because I just caught wind that another babelicious bloke just removed the 'for sale' sign on his body. Bradley Cooper with Renee Zellweger. Renee @ 40 and Bradly @ 34. Six years....not too bad, really. When Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher got it on together, I almost killed myself !!! I mean, COME AAAWWWWWNNN !!! Folks, that's a whopping SIXTEEN years difference there in favor of Kutcher! She mu...

...but that doesn't mean that we have to abuse it! Fine, some men like big ones, but according to my own personal survey done, despite saying that they prefer big pairs to small pairs, men actually don't mind small boobs. Some men even went as far as to say that humongous boobs scares them. Then I don't understand why Posh has to do this to herself??? Does she know that it's hideous?? It's alien! No woman deserves to torture her husband and herself this way! Gawd, what is WRONG with this woman? I don't think it looks nice at all.

I've been piling on work on my plate like I was mad for money. Actually, it's not too far from the truth...maybe I'm mad. But being mad about making it as a writer is starting to wear me down. From whichever angle I look at it, working too much DOES have it's negative effect. Prioritizing is not one of my strongest points, believe you me, because I am the kind of person who would take you up on a dare and go all the way to prove something wrong. I will swim against the tide just to show people that it's possible and that there's nothing wrong with swimming against it. Case in point, I took the kids to the park. The trail goes around in circles, right? This means, whichever entry you start, you'll end up in the park, anyway and just because others are going into the same entry point, it doesn't mean that I have to feel embarrassed about walking past people walking in the 'right' direction. We got stares, of course. Like there are hundreds of...

Despite all the mean things that I am capable of writing, I consider myself (most of the time) one of those who prefer not to swear. Not because I am holier than thou but because I've become this way because of the kids. When they were younger (and not exposed to these words), I resorted to writing them down in my journal and then subsequently thought it is fine to write it. They can't read it, anyway. :-) Never once did it cross my mind that they will attend school and discover the wonderful world of the Internet. So, I've become accustomed to being well-mannered. I try to...most of the time. But swearing at someone is not the rudest way to dismiss someone. It's worse when you imply that the person is not worth arguing with . One example would be the Cow-Head discussion incident whereby some individuals were not permitted to speak while certain quarters maintained their rights to scream into the microphone at every opportunity, behave rudely to appointed leaders. ...

En Route to my aunt's condo for a swim with the kids, the car collapsed for the second time. By saying 'collapsed', I meant that it overheated. When it overheated for the first time, a nice, elderly Malay man came to my rescue. He went off and came back to check on me (he asked me to wait until the car's temperature dropped (which take a bloody long time!!!) before adding water to whatever place that was - some tank) and helped me top up water into the thing. Lo and behold, 3 days later, as said, en route to my aunt's house armed with floats, goggles, towel, half-dressed in swimming costume and trunks, the car called it quits again. Lucky for me, it stopped right opposite a cluster of mechanics! The mechanic checked the car and solemnly announced that there's near-fatal wounds to the vehicle. There is no way the car is going to make it and I would be risking an overhaul if I decided to continue to drive the thing. Shite. Bad news is they just loaned their...

Photo credit I am no perfect parent. In fact, I'll be the first to admit that I am FAAAAAAAARRRRR from being a good parent. My kids play Nintendo too much, they Youtube too much, they don't read, are lazy beyond WORDS!!! I don't spend enough time with them and I'm not too good with mind games and chess. They don't go for tuition enough and they CAN get better grades in school if I pushed them enough. There. These past couple of days, I've GIVEN and RECEIVED advice about parenting techniques. But as friends and relatives, we should be able to give and receive advice from others so...there's nothing wrong with that. I listen and I speak. One should listen and speak too. I engaged two parents in a discussion about parenting these past few days. One, I told her that she should be more stern with her kid(s) and two, another parent told me that I should be more focused with mine. Hahahaha. Imagine that. The difference is that in the first instance, this par...