PARADOX IS BLISS!

My new year wish for 2008:

1. Have more than one pair of shoes.
2. Have a really nice, tailor-made suit.
3. Have a belt. (Yes for pants. What else? What’s with the look? Is it weird that I don’t have belts?)
4. Have extra neckties. To go with the really nice suit and the belt…

Gee… would you lookit that… they all need money….
You know what that means? That means
5. Have money.

Now that we’re done with the looks, let’s move on to the funny part.

My new year resolution for 2008:
1. Be a better me.
2. Be a braver me.
3. Be honest.

24 October, 2007

So here we are, guys, exactly 2 weeks since my newest nephew came into (or OUT to?) the world!

It was a worldwide debate and generally a hectic confusion in those two weeks, for the parents of the new-born to basically came up with a name. I don’t know what was going on and was not much inclined to ask as to why this was. I heard from some that when you’re expecting, choosing the right name for the baby-to-be is like, the SECOND most important thing for youl; the first being the baby’s future.

Or is it the other way around? Hmm…

ANYWAY… There they both were: under a heap of names for a healthy baby-boy. Nothing sounded good. They asked me awhile ago, as I might’ve told you, about this. But I didn’t come up with anything either. This time though, after the baby’s born, did I try to assist as little as possible (since naming should be the parents’ responsibilty, I think). I came up with out-dated names first, like: Mulyadi, or Parmanto and practically anything that begins with ‘Su-’… They’re not out of their minds yet over this so they said no to all of them…

Last week my brother-in-law - the baby’s FATHER - comically suggested the Sundanese favorite ‘Kiskenda’. (LOL!!! That was hilarious. But not for any Kiskendas out there though…)

And then I tried some more with better-sounding and more up-to-date names like Raka, Mahesa, And Galih. None-shall-pass!!! they said… This was such a mind-boggling situation that it drove me to discuss this with a friend. My friend reminded the importance of avoiding silly, modern names that are basically hard to pronounce and give tons of moral loads to the bearer; names that require considerable tongue-trick skills to pronounce; names with the letters ‘-sy-’, ‘-sh-’, ‘-dz-’, ‘-zh-’, and so on. I don’t want to give examples because it might hurt those who’re already hurt enough with having names like those…

And the LENGTH!!! Modern families nowadays seem to fall for trends in long, hard-to-remember names. It’s like they were hoping that complicated names will make for smart and complicated kids. You know what? It just smartly complicated things, that’s all… Another evidence is the tendency to get stuck with names beginning with ‘A’. Another is how parents try to fit all the names their families have suggested to them, and, not wanting to let these guys down, the parents squeezed the names into something that hopefully will satisfy everyone. Life IS complicated. Yes. i understand your pain, parents. But be smart. (Hey, lookit that! smart and complicated ARE important…)

I have a modern name for you: MXYZPTLK!!! He’s smart, he’s complicated, and he’s LITERALLY out-of-this-world!!! (For non-geeks out there, MXYZPTLK is one of Superman’s C-class supervillains from the fifth dimension… Don’t ask. I may be a geek, but not a Superman geek).

Now I have to say that my family and I can finally breathe easy because they announced the name today, Sunday, October 28th, 2007. It’s a good, strong and simple name; and I’m quite relieved that the proud parents didn’t fall into any of the traps above. Now THAT’S what I call smart and complicated.

Friends and families, I humbly introduce you to

ERLANDY RIZWAN SALMAN.

May he be a Name in the world to come that do us all proud.

The signs I wrote about yesterday turned out to be a false alarm… lol… my sister went to the hospital and stayed there for more than 12 hours for nothing. She came back some time in the afternoon. But later that night she decided she had had enough of those ‘feelings’. You know: that feeling you get when you desperately need to take a shit, did it, but then didn’t feel quite finished like there’s a huge, solid chunk still left inside? Hahaha… No i myself don’t of course, actually know how it feels but that statement came from my very own terminally-pregnant sister.

Besides, her back ached like hell. She was sweating and swelling and ugly (kidding), and her back ached.

So her husband drove her last night at almost midnight and the next thing I know I was sleeping and waking up very late to see my parents off to visit her. I, once again, was charged to guard the house. This is due to the unfortunate robbery taking place in our house one year ago on Lebaran day. We see no reason of being positive-minded and taking no risks, so here I am.

Today on October 14 2007, as I was surfing and YouTube-ing on my laptop, comfortably lazy on the second day of Lebaran, my cellphone alerted me of a new message. It was from my dad and this was what he wrote:

TELAH LAHIR CUCU LK2 DARI TITIS/GANI TGL 14/10/07 JAM 15:31 DI RSIA TAMBAK, JKT. TRM KSH ATAS DOA RESTUNYA. (emang kawinan?)

Anyway news spread like fire on gasolene and soon people were calling home asking me about it which, of course, I didn’t have the answer to. People, like my other sister, were also calling in to TELL me that mbak Titis has given birth to a baby boy. I gave these people the appropriate “Duh!” and hung up as soon as possible. (I’m not much of a phone person)

Anyways. Congratulations to my sister and her husband. I’ll post back when they’ve named the baby, and when I have acquired a decent photo of him. Ciao!

THE BIRTH OF (NAME HERE)
October 13, 2007

Takbiran night… The early hours of Idul Fitri…

The clock on the wall showed 01:41 when Mbak Titis, my immediate older sister, left for the hospital with my parents. A little before midnight she came down from her room and told me she had just had her first signs of labor. She planned to rest downstairs with my parents, but never came to it and decided to leave immediately.

Her husband at this time is taking the graveyard shift at work, just as he did at Takbiran night last year. Meanwhile I was to stay at home with my oldest nephew and niece, who came to visit from Jogja for the holidays. When my sister left, they were already asleep and utterly oblivious to the… relative excitement.

This was an exciting moment partly because it’s the end of Ramadhan, and secondly because between all five of my other siblings, Mbak Titis is the only one whose progress I could witness since she was living at home with me and my parents (and her husband, of course).

There is no name yet for the baby, since it is still kept from the rest of us. But by experience, my family gene have so far given birth to six male disasters and only two female catastrophes (just kidding. I love you all, you naughty maggots!) So it is likely that this next ‘production’ will be a boy. That, and the fact that routine check-ups proved it to be a boy…

Anyway, wish my sister and her husband luck. Thank you very much in advance. Such an exciting time this is. And when it happens, I’ll get back to you.

Oh, and, in the spirit of Idul Fitri:
Minal aidin wal faidzin. I humbly beg you forgive my past mistakes, body and soul, said and done.

Let there be light!