The Pretty Face in Those Stupid YouTube Videos

I saw and walked past a strange looking guy this morning while walking to the office. He looked awful, uncombed hair, wore worn out clothes, has sunburned skin, and unshaven. Simply put, he’s a total mess. He bent down on the sidewalk and wrote on it with a piece of chalk “Effendy”. I don’t know whether he wanted to tell the passerbys his name or else, but obviously, I don’t want to find out.

I saw a strange video in YouTube this afternoon. There’s a young girl in it. Obviously, she recorded the video and uploaded it herself. She also looked like a mess, all teary and runny nose, awfully looking hair. However, one can see that she used to be pretty, even though her sandy colored hair made her look ugly and silly. She started lip-synching to Christina Aguilera’s “Hurt”, which made her cried even more. I noticed in an instant, who she really is. Her recent broke up with his boyfriend already made small ripples in tabloids and gossip shows.

Now, I don’t feel pity or sympathy to that “Effendy” guy, because my mind is too busy thinking about other things. It’s already cluttered with half-baked creative ideas for a pitch for a provider’s new campaign. And come to think of him again, I’m not even half sure that he’s a nut.

As to the the girl in the video? Why should one feel pity towards her? She knew exactly what would come upon her if public watched her videos, yet she still uploaded them to YouTube. The public love to judge others, especially performers and entertainers. And it certainly won’t help being a former child idol, a has been soap opera megastar like you. The public don’t have pity on your “kind”, who we judged as a has been, a used to be, the failed one. You know how much the public is consisted of harsh critics. So when you acting up all like that, we as the public, laughed hard. Everybody loves laughing at losers, your "kind", because that makes us feel better.

My simple advice to you, pretty face in those stupid YouTube videos: cheer up!

I still remember your - supposedly - killer looks while watching the premiere of Sex and The City The Movie, together with your friend Velove. What you really need to get through all this diminishing stardom and subsequent mental breakdown is Mariah Carey. Everyone knows how she had fallen hard from grace, and surprisingly, bounced and made a solid come back. Look at where she is now.

You see, life’s been treating you very well in your childhood and teenage years. Who knows what has been reserved for you in years to come? Just hang on there.

Oh, and one more thing. Never upload other silly videos like the ones you did before this. They’re plain stupid.

Disclaimer: The image above is not the person I'm referring to in this writing.

Those Three Words

Can't you see it's raining outside?
But you, you hardly even noticed

You were concentrating on me
Because you said you have something important to say

Been two years and still counting
I now believe I know you like nobody ever will

You're moody, temperamental, easily aroused and annoyed
Yet they don't have important meanings now

You looked me deeply in the eyes
And asked me to pretend that we're still together

You told me that we might fall in love again
Just like in the very beginning

And even though I kept silent while you're talking
But I, I just knew

How much you tried to say "I love you"
Yet those words get in the way

Will You ?

Half closed, these dreamy eyes of mine
Hallucinating, I saw you in between the graceful sunflowers
Whirling and dancing like the spinning wheel
Your hearty laughs fill the air with excitement
It feels like you’re just within arms reach, so close I can smell your sweet perfume

If I asked you then would you say yes?

If I tell you now will you ever believe me?

And if I say “I’ll love you forever” will you wait for my return?

Antara Tidur Siang dan Pakai Kemeja Batik

Mengapa sih rasa kantuk itu diciptakan ?
Berhubung tidak ada Galileo maupun Newton apalagi Dr. Oz buat ditanya, jadi terpaksa mencari jawaban sendiri deh. Untung masa kini ada Google buat menemukan solusi atas mayoritas pertanyaan.

Katanya sih, kantuk dan diikuti aktivitas tidur itu sebagai mekanisme tubuh untuk shutting down semua kerja otot – kecuali jantung tentu saja, karena kalau begitu jadinya bakalan is dead – serta untuk memulihkan energi. Selain itu, bisa juga dimanfaatkan oleh sel-sel tubuh untuk meregenerasi diri.
Terkadang, membaca jawaban khususnya yang terakhir, yang terbayangkan olehku adalah sel-sel kulit mengelupas luruh jatuh ke atas seprai kasur, dan akibatnya setiap bangun pagi jadi harus sibuk bersih-bersih deh. Konyol juga imajinasi semacam itu. Memangnya ular yang kerap berganti kulit?

Jadi sebenarnya hendak bercerita, kalau tadi pagi aku baru mulai sesi pertama di gym dengan personal trainer.

Cieee. Serasa keren banget ga sih, pake PT segala. Jadi teringat Madonna yang umurnya sudah tidak belia lagi tapi bodinya masih aja yahud, nyaris tanpa lemak. Melihat tubuhnya di cover Vanity Fair beberapa bulan lalu emang bikin hati ini terluka. Lebay sih, sebenarnya maksudku merasa tersindir saja.

Jadi ceritanya pakai jasa si Personal Trainer ini menjadi pilihan terpenting bulan ini, mengingat lemak perutku udah bleber kemana-mana. No longer cute love handles. Dan khawatirnya kalau sok-sokan mau coba-coba bakar lemak sendiri, bisa jadi ga fokus karena memang ga tau caranya dan tidak punya ilmunya.

Yang kemudian terjadi, sesi pertama bersama si PT sukses bikin banjir keringat, which is good, dan bikin seluruh tumpukan lemak di tubuh ini jadi gemebyar, mirip gerakan umbul-umbul yang ditiup angin. Kalau kurang bisa divisualisasikan, coba aja dibantu dengan lirik lagu ”Rayuan Pulau Kelapa”.

Anyway, setelah pagi-pagi dibolak-balik hingga gemetaran sekujur badan sama itu PT, sampai sesak napas plus keringat dingin bikin aku lagi-lagi cemas terkena serangan jantung (huah!), lantas melewatkan waktu hampir 10 menit di dalam steam room sangat membantu relaksasi otot-otot yang tadinya sempat kaku.

Apalagi, tadi hanya bersendirian di dalam ruangan penuh uap pekat itu. Senangnya! Meskipun ga berani jauh-jauh dari pintu, takut mendadak ada kenapa-kenapa dengan jantung ini yang mendadak mencurigakan kondisinya, jadi biar bisa langsung keluar dari dalam ruangan bertekanan tinggi. *terasa lebay.

Nah, awalnya aku masih saja bersemangat, tiba-tiba siang ini di kantor saat semua orang lagi dibuat sibuk karena ada proses pitching dengan sebuah institusi keuangan plat merah, rasa kantuk luar biasa menghadang menerjang.

Jangankan buat diajak berpikir, untuk sekedar buka mata saja rasanya tak sanggup. Akhirnya setelah segala daya gagal untuk mempertahankan kesadaran, aku pun memilih pulas sejenak di atas sofa. Tapi kendalanya, ya itu tadi, orang-orang lagi pada sibuk mengerjakan pitching, yang ada beberapa kali aku terbangun akibat bunyi pesawat telepon yang bolak-balik berbunyi kencang. Masih ditingkahi oleh suara telepon genggam entah siapa. Berisik!

Pengen murka rasanya karena istirahat siangku diganggu, tapi tak pada tempatnya juga sih. Secara ini di kantor. Dan jam kerja pula. Tidak ada alasan apapun yang bisa menjustifikasi tidur siangku ini.

Kalau di kantor lama sih, bahkan ketiduran di kantor saat jam sudah lewat pukul delapan malam saja masih dijadikan masalah sama supervisor. Alasannya, kantor buat bekerja! Bukan untuk tidur!

Dikira orang robot apa ya? Masa sudahlah masuknya jam delapan pagi dan langsung sibuk, duabelas jam kemudian istirahat sebentar masih tidak boleh? Sudah gila. Untung saja jaman-jaman jahiliyah itu sudah kulalui dengan selamat. Meskipun sempat sakit-sakitan sebentar, tapi untungnya tidak sampai harus rawat inap seperti beberapa orang teman.

Ngomong-ngomong soal inap menginap, sepertinya ada yang berjanji mau menginap in my crib deh weekend ini. Saat janji tersebut dikemukakan, sempat merasakan happy sejenak sih. Sudah kebayang aktivitas seru apa saja yang akan dilakukan. *smirking*.

Lalu saat membuka e-mail, cengiran itu menghilang, terhapus dari wajah. Ya ampun, Sabtu ini kan ada resepsi nikah salah satu sahabat di masa kuliah dulu? Lokasinya relatif dekat pula, hanya limabelas menit dengan taksi. Tampaknya tidak ada alasan sahih apapun yang akan diterima kalau sampai tidak memunculkan batang hidung di sana.

Kalau begitu, nanti sore sepulang dari kantor, harus segera mengeluarkan baju batik kerah Nehru – yang kubeli dua tahun lalu dari Yogyakarta tapi baru dipakai sekali doang itu – dari dalam lemari untuk diangin-anginkan. Mudah-mudahan tidak kusut tertimpa baju yang lain, dan tidak sampai apek karena dikeluarkan dari dalam lemari hanya sekali setahun.

Ajak si Dia buat menemaniku menghadiri resepsi, tidak ya?

Soalnya, Dia kan sudah berulang-kali mengungkapkan keinginannya untuk melihat aku mengenakan baju batik dan tampil dengan gaya tradisional khas Indonesia. Aku rasa, Dia sih pasti tidak akan menolak. Dan toh, aku juga pasti akan senang didampingi. Asyik !

dengan sederhana

aku ingin bisa mencintaimu seutuhnya dengan caraku yang begitu sederhana
ingin kubisa membuatmu tertawa menangis berteriak bercinta dalam satu nafas kita yang sama
sehingga ketika jemariku bertaut kau berada dalam sentuhannya
dan ketika kupejamkan kelopak mata aku melihat sosokmu seutuhnya
dan ketika aku berbicara ada kehangatan jiwamu memancar lewat setiap suku kata
karena aku sungguh ingin bisa mencintaimu seutuhnya dengan caraku yang amat sederhana

- sedikit banyak diinspirasikan oleh salah satu puisi Sapardi Djoko Damono

Disco Will Not Be Here to Stay (Neither Will You)

This is where we’ve come to
After all these things we’ve gone through

This time I’m taking it away
It is you who have got a problem

I see you are lost in so many different ways
When the problems getting in the way

You told me they made you feel like being left out in darkness
Alone, by yourself
Where no one is around to help you
While in fact I was actually standing next to you, yet
Invisible
To your eyes

Do you know that love can easily come and pass you by ?
Do you realize that it can hit you hard and then you realize,
that it’s already slipping through your fingers out of your hands ?

But you just don’t understand

So this time I’m taking it away
So you won’t have to see the elevating pain,
As the hurt turns into hating

My mind’s done with you and everything about us

But still I have this one question burning inside,
“Since I’m here to stay, can I just throw you away?”

Of Wishes and Dreams

Within those long nights when everything seems to go wrong
I had these strange dreams that keep recurring
That I hid behind this certain thicket fence
And see the world through different eyes
It rushes and left me alone silently watching

I need someone to help me figure these dreams out
What they mean when they kept rushing right through my life
And let me playing with my tears before they dried in the sun

It seems like years
I don’t think you will ever be coming back for more
At first I was afraid to set you free
Even when I know that’s the way things should be

Now let me kiss away the pain of our old memories
And stop trying to make sense of everything
Just look beyond ourselves so we can survive
Through the dreams and reminiscences

If you still have doubt, let the night decide
Because I still have this one wish,
To kiss you tenderly to sleep

His Pair of Angelic Eyes

We were taking a walk along the pond in the park
David and William and Michael and me
It was such a cloudy Sunday afternoon
The leaves on the trees moved and fell with the breezing wind
The birds were busy chirping on the branches of the trees
Yet we still filled the time with our cheerful chatter
When suddenly my gaze struck upon these two people
Standing face to face across the pond away from us

The moment I saw him again,
The one I used to know too well
I couldn’t stop my mind from the memories flowing back
How they hurt just to remember all the good times
Made me wonder whether he felt the same
Will the memories bring back the pain?

And that afternoon I clearly saw him
Holding hands together with this beautiful young girl
And the way he looked at her ...
Boy, it gave me shiver
Because he used to look at me that way

Probably I should walk right up to them and interrupt their conversation
And tell her, “Be careful, girl. It’s a game he likes to play.”

It was Michael who held my arm
Warned me by saying,
“Just don’t. Please.”
While David imbued,
“You have to get him out of your mind.”
And Michael added to it,
“You have to forget everything.”

I knew they had their point
Because once you set eyes upon his pair of angelic eyes
Just one look and you’re hypnotized
You will think you’re in paradise
But one day when you already went deep and it was all too late
You’ll find out for all those times he wears a very good disguise
While his only intention is to take your heart
In the end it’s you who have to pay the price

Still I managed to whisper to the wind
Hoping the breeze will carry it across the pond and drop it to her ear
And right in time she could hear
What I sincerely hope she would never do

“Girl, for whatever reason, just don’t look too deep into his pair of angelic eyes.”

Loose Knots

I remember when
Both of us laughed
On the side of the road under the traffic light

Holding hands
You promised me that
You’d always stay the same

When those diamonds shone in your eyes
How could I not trust you?
How could I not believe in you?

Yet things did not go as we’ve planned together

Now all that is left behind is I who keep wondering

What it is that holds together the loose knots of our relationship?

In The Darkness, You Stay

Words are never enough for me to say how much I miss you
Because you flew away from here too soon
It made me feel alone now without you

Yet every night when I close my eyes
I hear your voice so sweet and melancholy, just like an angel

Your words, they sing through me
Your voice, it brings you back
Here in the darkness of the starless nights
Back to where you belong

You are here even though you are gone
And I know that
Inside
You will always stay

Under The Darkly Night Sky

I have been walking lonely down this empty street tonight
I don’t know what is wrong with me
I have sung Fix You for myself to hear
But this voice trembled harder long before the end
The clouds cover up this darkly starless night sky
I don’t know what is left of me
Somehow I just don’t know what is right with me

Tried to keep my distance
That is what I have done lately
I have besmirched all our memories
But there will always be a trace of you inside me

I still remember some ups we had
You and me laughing at Spongebob and Patrick and the peculiar inhabitants of Bikini Bottom
You tried impersonating their quirky voices just to make me laughed harder
But the ones that tickled me much were your innocent childish smile
And those deep wells on both sides of your cheeks shown each time

And I fell in love with your calm assuasive clear eyes
How they led my battered and bruised self found the serenity within your soul
I will never forget how you pulled me towards you hugged me closely saved me from walking carelessly too close to the edge of sanity
And catered me security
And made me confessed indirectly that it was with you that I fell so much in love of this kind for the very first time

And then you whispered in your sweet husky voice,
“Don’t leave now. Because I need you just as polar bears need Arctic’s ice.”
“Let me in. Because I want to share this warmth within me so that you’ll never again feel that winter in your soul.”
“Hold my hand. Because you’re too precious to ever let go.”
“Stay with me. Because I love you as the night loves being accompanied by the stars and the moon.”
And each time I cried inside, you just knew
“Hush now. I don’t want you shed your precious little diamonds.”

I believe God sent you all the way from His beautiful Garden
As a true sign that He loves me that much
And how I felt so much blessed

But maybe those darkly starless night skies were changing you
Nights before we could ever met for the first time
And even though they put radiant diamonds in your eyes for me to admire at nights before I fall asleep
I will never understand why the same darkly starless night skies gradually changed your heart
To be as cold as those stones on the bank of the solitude lake we visited last monsoon

And I always thought we were going to make this through
You love me love you what else do we need?
“Nothing, just the two of us,” that was your answer the first and also the last time I asked

Yet still I wonder naively,
What things will hold together the loose knots of our relationship?
How I wanted to hear if first from you before holding my hand and lead us walking our life
If in the end you me go,
How many days am I going to regret you?
How many tears am I going to shed for you?

And how vast those darkly starless night skies I am going to look up to and not thinking of you?

Silly Guy

You know how much I’m in love with you, you silly guy
Anyone can see it, for it becomes too apparent in their eyes

But now I wonder what is it with you, you silly guy
I can feel your heart beating peculiarly fast in this chance meeting

Do you want me to take these all away, you silly guy?
Let’s not be so sure because even though I do it now, still we have it all later in the end

You know too well I’m not an optimistic person, you silly guy
But when I find you here in this place I feel this is where I belong

In the place where we know the bond between us will make us prevail
You and I both, two silly guys