The cab driver detected an accent, figured I wasn't from around, and decided to butt fuck me.

I met Su Hung at an open air beach-style coffee house at the entrance of Emporium, an "Oh I think I'm So Cool With These Blue Sunglasses" hive. He introduced me to his friends...

Beng
And you guys thought I had a hair problem. This guy is 22 and the hair on his head is thinner than the air on Everest. Oh, and another characteristic defining this man was his total and absolute sedateness. I swear, this guy was hooked up to a Prozac drip or something.

Tee Ch'ng
She works for a left wing underground propagandist newsletter. Their main goal is to injure the status quo and in doing so topple the government. Tee Ch'ng sports a tattoo of a black widow on her frontal hip, a symbol of party affiliation. Often appearing and disappearing from surface society like tropical rain on porous soil she chooses her men to suit her chameleonic lifestyle, foreign naval men who come as they please and who please as they come.

Tee Lee a.k.a Fer-Tee-Lee-Tee
The not so evil twin sister of Tee Ch'ng. An architect by profession, Tee Lee specializes in designing erotic torture chambers for mid-40 year old Japanese business men.

Mom, Dad, Bernie and I set off for the hills slightly before eleven and arrived at about noon. I guess the purpose of the trip was for me to see our Amber Court apartment for the first time. I wasn't too impressed by the moss chewed exterior but the apartment itself was really cozy. I think it would be a real riot to have a dozen or so people up there at one time. I was famished by lunch time so we moseyed over to the mushroom farm for a delightful meal with home-cooked written all over it.

Gentings was particularly cold and foggy that day and it would have been awesome to have a cuddle partner. Kinda sucks when the only females with you are your sister and your mum.

Bernie flew into Singapore from Karachi and then immediately into KL. After lunch she and I took a trip to Metrojaya, then to State, back to Metrojaya and then back home with two bottles of champagne and 16 champagne flutes.

We had a steamboat dinner, with almost the same casts from the family reunion the week before. After dinner we sprung the belated anniversary surprise on our parents. This was probably the worst planned surprise party in the world but I think my parents did a splendid job of acting surprised.

I had a reunion with "Oh Chean" (oyster fry) today. You tell time in Malacca by meal.

"Hey Chong, what time is it?" "Oh, it's a quarter to supper."

The photo below is of me with my Oh Chean dealer.

I arranged to meet Su Hung, Jason and Andy in Bangsar. We met at Coffee Bean and later retired to Modestos for beer. Nothing had changed with these guys.

Joan took me to Insomnia and then to Champs and then to Echo where I had a torrid time. Joan was particularly unfriendly today. I think she was having her PMS today. Or was she?

I don't think there was a time I didn't have to wait at the dentist. This ritual of making patients wait made certain that one had enough time to savor the good things to come.

"Mr. Chin," a female voice called out semi-chirpyly. I looked up and towards the nurse's window.

"Mr. Chin," her voice called out again, this time a little lower and a wee bit more stern.

Our eyes met in the middle of the room, acknowledgment on my part that I was the owner of the name just flaunted across the waiting room. I reluctantly placed both hands on my knees, strained myself vertical and walked towards the man behind the door, the man I was going to pay a great deal of money to inflict pain on me. I made it through the wooden frame and the door closed behind me.

I bought six pairs of pants today.

Monday was Visa Day. Yuck! I met and talked to a couple of strangers at the embassy. One was a 40 year old Indian guy who asked me if it was a short drive from New York to Los Angeles. He was planning to attend his brother's wedding in Boston.

"Yeah sure. Hop onto the I-70 for a few days, hang a left and you'll come to the Hollywood sign."

The other guy I met recognized me from my Inti days. I had no idea who he was. I really wished I had stopped along the way to get to know the people who did not matter to me back then.

Blood relatives started to trickle into my house. The noise built. But I could still hear my Mom. This meant not all of the Tan family were present. Thank God for that.

Food was served and soon everyone was in clusters. I hopped from cluster to cluster, exchanging 3 years of news in 5 minutes.

Oh, and in the three years I was gone, my cousin Gary made an Uncle out of me. Twice. Their names are Natasha and Nathalie.

Hmmmm! Uncle Jeremy. Psychologically, that adds ten years to your age.

I weathered the "Do you have a girlfriend?", the "How much longer are you going to be there?", and the "What happened to your hair?" questions. And then they left me alone.

20 hours ago, I stepped onto a plane in LA. I've now been standing here for close to an hour and the conveyor belt has yet to convey my luggage.

I now write this from 4 Jalan 7/16. Everything looks a little different from when I left some three years ago. Even the color of the light.

Earlier, after I finally got my luggage at the airport, I darted for the shortest line at the customs. There were 4 malay girls and two Malay guys ahead of me. The customs guy was really friendly and all 6 eased through. And then it was my turn.

"Dari mana?"

"Los Angeles."

"Buka."

And so I opened my bag. In my hurried rush to make it to the airport on time, I just mashed my clothes, both dirty and clean into a fabric mosh pit. The two men in blue went at my unappetizing pile of crap like wolves to raw meat, combing every cranny of my bag like a chimps "de-lice-ing" their young. I obediently swallowed my dose of racist reality and at that point knew for sure that I was indeed back home in Malaysia.

I'm threading on two and a half hours of sleep after being on the phone with Hui Chin for almost 9 hours last night. My head feels like its been filled with one part water and one part mercury... except the mercury is floating on top of the water instead of it being the other way around. (See how weird I get when I don't get my regular dose of Alpha.) What did we talk about for 9 hours? Alien abduction and anal probing of unsuspecting underaged single male sheep in the mid-west.

Debbie offered to give me a test drive in her almost virgin 2000 black Eclipse when I sauntered into the office this morning. So off we went. This car has super pick up and rides smoother than freshly waxed legs. But all joyrides come to an end and now it is back to playing finger footsie on my blueberry semi-transparent Apple keyboard. I've got so much doughnut sugar and Honey Wheat Graham crumbs caught behind the keys of my keyboard it sometimes puzzles me that some cockroach, somewhere, hasn't had the brains to start a family under my keyboard. May be they don't like their sleep disrupted by my typing in the day. But they could live under "Q". I never use "Q".

I stepped away from my desk for awhile but now I'm back. Got myself a Pepsi in hope that them caffeine molecules would disrupt the sluggish blood clogging my veins. I'm normally a hardcore Coke person who would rather drink dry cracked mud than be seen in public with a Pepsi in my hand... but I guess I've decided to dump that image thing for one morning at least.

Well, I think I've written enough shit for one morning. Which brings me actually to yet another snippet of my life I'd like to share with you, the world. I promise I'll stop after I plug this. I've got a sucker fish named after me... a designation so appropriate in my opinion, mostly due to the unfortunate reality of me being so utterly full of shit. The fish's name was administered, of course, by none other than Hui Chin, who, at the time of the assignment, wanted me to "Go eat shit and die" since we were not too fond of each other. But now that we're b u d d i e s, Hui Chin has decided to make up for her absolutely unacceptable past decision by naming her plant after me... may be subconsciously to further suggest that I'm a vegetable and that I'm at the bottom of the food chain. I say this because she chose not to feed Jeremy any sunlight for a week. He is currently hooked to life support and is surrounded by close family members at a nearby hospital after he was ripped from her possession by the RSPCA for plants.

I sure am in a chatty mood this morning. It's probably the caffeine taking effect. But my high is coming to an end right now and I can see a caffeine crash lurking over the horizon. In fact I can see blur blotches tip toeing inwards from the corner of my eyes and my eyelids are migrating to my feet at the rate of 9.8 meters per second per second. The muscles in my neck are in mutiny and my half mercury half water weighted head is in a dive towards my keyboard. The keyboard is accelerating toward my face. I can see the doughnut sugar and Honey Wheat Graham crumbs more clearly than ever. If I'm going down, I'm taking you bastards with me. QQQQQQQQQQ

It's two days before I depart for Malaysia, I'm in my office and I'm currently eating half of what is left of my sugar twistee from yesterday. The darn doughnut is more like a churros today.

I woke up really depressed today and fingered through half a pack of cigarettes in an hour as I strummed my guitar, playing both happy and sad tunes... happy tunes to try and draw me out of my gloom and sad ones to help me articulate the thoughts that were speeding through my head at a 1000 miles per hour.

I'm on my second can of Brisk this hot, sticky afternoon. I had yet another wild weekend with Hui Chin. So now having to sit here in the office doing what I do, reminds me a lot of the time I accidentally attempted to shift my car from fifth to reverse.

I spent Friday at Arena, this pretty gay and drag populated nightclub with two dance floors, no age limit and no alcohol. Highlight of the evening was when I got kissed on the right cheek by Becker, this girly guy in a tank top and Britney bicycle pants. It was really yucky and his lips were really wet. My skin stopped crawling two days later.

The Key Club was really fun on Saturday and the cage was as entertaining as ever. Especially cool this week was this GQ model guy taking a metal sander to the metal undies of my favorite dominatriX chick. Her crotch looked like the Fourth of July as sparks dodged outwards in every direction from the metal to metal grind.

After the Key Club, Hui Chin and I took a stroll over to the Body Shop. I had always wondered what it would be like bringing a girl to a strip club. I guess it was pretty awkward having Hui Chin there because I had to contain my drool within the four walls of my cheeks. Aside from that, it was really cool.

On the way back from the Body Shop, Hui Chin and I decided to stop by Ralph's to buy $20 worth of powdered milk for a milk bath.

I woke up this morning with a sexy hot chick beside me... on the kitchen floor. Too much alcohol more often than not leads to weird behavior.

I shot a whopping 88 at the bowling alley last night. Yeee Haaa!!

My eyes were closed, and I was being swirled into vertigo. The swirling stops, drum roll, anticipation, eyes open, marimba mallets nested in a burgundy bouquet. I would have cried if I was alone.

San Diego was a lot of fun. Caught the guys at the Tiki Club Saturday night. Brian played one of his better solos and Hiatt was in rare form that night as he repeatedly tried to get into Hui Chin's pants. Hui Chin got more drunk this weekend than she did the last and was comically slurring about scary red foxes and octopuses beyond the ocean horizon. We tried to sit out her insobriety on the sands of Pacific Beach but then it got too cold.

The La Jolla Cove was magnificent Sunday afternoon. Even more magnificent was the Laker's beating the Blazers in a crucial nail biting game 7 that evening.

ZZZZZZ !!!zzzzzzz!!! ZZZZZZ!!!

I manage to squeeze in a mere 4 hours of sleep before I have my blanket violently jerked away from me. "Wakey, wakey!" My two ton eyelids lethargically peel open and my eyes acquire their focus after a couple of seconds. Standing before me, bathed in a perky glow, is Hui Chin.

I'm really surprised that I've not put a bullet through this woman's head yet.

Hui Chin was really depressed the day before so I agreed to watch the cartoon Dinosaur with her at The Plant on Friday night. I have nothing against cartoons. I just don't think it is worth paying money to watch a cartoon. Plus, in my opinion, wall to wall, Sony Dolby Digital DMX surround sound for a cartoon is unnecessary extravagance. And of course, this is how she repays me. By rousing me at 7.30 on a Saturday... on Saturday.... on a Saturday morning so that I could follow her to Century City to sign the lease to her new apartment.

After she signed the lease we returned home. At half past noon we hopped over to Geri's (apartment manager/hair stylist) and weathered a long, tedious five hour session of bleaching and dying. Hui Chin went with Rocket Fire Red and I with Natural-Ice-Beer-Can Blue. Yup! I got my hair color from a beer can. They didn't have a fancy name like Rocket Fire attached to my shade of blue. All it had was a catalog number, O-10. Which is kinda cool because it goes with my binary code tattoo.

And it was off to San Diego that evening.