Tinker, Tailor

So I was riding innocently on the MRT the other day, innocently reading my book.

Along the way, I looked over to my right to rest my eyes. A man sitting about 5 seats away on the same row happened to be looking at me. I wasn’t keen on a confrontation so I looked away.

A stop or two later, the MRT was already pretty empty, and I was still reading, when I felt someone sitting diagonally across staring at me. I looked up. It was the same guy. A 40-something Malay guy. With a pockmarked face. Staring at me. Intently. Then his left eye closed. Slowly. A wink. It was a wink. He winked at me.

I turned slowly back to my book. I tried to read. I pretended to read. He winked at me. Dammit. Read the book. He winked at me. The pervert winked at me. I pretended to read. He’s still staring at me. I turned the page. His legs are wide open. Dammit. Read the book!

We reached Boon Lay station, the last station, so we both had to get off the train.

Due to the positions of our respective doors, he would be behind me. Dammit. Behind me.

I made a detour, to see if he would trail me. Not that I had any idea what to do if he did.

He didn’t. Phew.

LMD has announced the closing of her nail spa. I’m gonna miss that place.

Here’s what I put in the comments:

what?!?!? i have no place to get my green tea and get my nails done now!!!

*sigh*

I remember one evening when a few of us were having dinner at Gluttons’ Square and discussing the upcoming Bloggers.SG 2005, I mentioned to the group that the nail spa is a really nice and classy place.

“And the pedicure is really good!” I added.

One of the guys gave me a look of horror, “you went for a pedicure?!?” He shook his head, “this ain’t right man!”

LMD and I gave each other knowing grins.

In case my masculinity is in question, for the record, I’ve never ever had any pedicures ever in my life ever.

But every now and then, I’d pop by the nail spa in the evening after a hectic day at work just to have a chat. And LMD would always offer me some green tea.

Then there was the time when I went in there just as she was preparing a warm foot bath for herself, so she prepared one for me too. So there we sat on the comfy leather armchairs, feet soaking in the warm lavender concoction as we discussed our respective futures…

It’s not just her “little oasis” - it was an oasis to me too. For more reasons than one.

Like the time when I was walking along the corridor in the shopping centre on my way to her nail spa, when this skinny guy in red-white-blue striped polo T-shirt approached from the opposite direction. He was staring at me. I glared back.

It didn’t take me very long to detect some weirdness in his stare - his was not aggressive at all. My gaydar started ringing just as we passed each other.

I tried to remain calm, as I stepped onto the escalator to go down. Just as my eye level was reaching the floor of the level we were on, I turned back to see if he would turn back to trail me.

He did.

I didn’t run, but I certainly wanted to. Anyway I walked really fast, before ducking breathlessly into the little oasis.

Of course, LMD thought I was mad/paranoid, but as I started relating the incident to her, Mr red-white-blue stripes walked by the shop. Luckily he didn’t come in.

I’m gonna miss the little oasis. If I ever got a pedicure, it would have been there.

Years ago, when I was still in my first office, my colleague and I both had a stuffed Tux, the Linux penguin.

My colleague’s was a bigger one, tall enough to fit nicely inside a size-10 shoe box. And in fact, I did put it in a shoe box, and decorated it such that it looked like one of those red Chinese altars with a deity sitting in it. And I stuck it high on our office wall.

It eventually fell off the wall after some months (the duct tape couldn’t take the weight), but not before bringing a lot of smiles to our visitors’ faces.

As for my smaller Tux, I stuffed it inside a narrow glass:

Now it sits nicely on my office desk.

At my previous office, the cubicle farm I was in was actually a large room with 2 glass doors, one at each end of the room.

However, we’d only bother to unlock one of the doors - the one on the left which is nearer the main department entrance. The other one on the right was perpetually locked.

Unfortunately, every now and then, some visitor would come and decide to enter from the locked door. They’d push the glass door, only to find it locked. Some morons had to push and pull and push and pull a few times before getting convinced that the door was locked. And every time the door was pushed (or pulled), it would cause a banging noise, disrupting our concentration.

One day I decided I had enough. I stuck a sign on the door.

Here’s a closer look:

It helped a lot.

But after that, every now and then, some moron would still come a visiting.

Here’s a picture of the keyboard of my old computer that got fried.

Yeah, I actually wrote on different parts of the computer - the CPU even had my name on it. Surprisingly, no one said a word.

I’m not about to write on my Macbook Pro though.

Updated

New job, new office, new boss.

Yup new office, without a cubicle. Yayness.

The boss seems cool. Or maybe weird?

Here’s why-

1. His office wall looks like this:

Here’s my wall for reference:

How can he have more posters than I have??

2. He calls me “boss”.

And I call him by his name.

Something’s not right.

Well, at least like Yoda he does not speak.

Update:

I forgot one important point.

3. He blogs.

And he’s been blogging way before I started blogging.

And he’s got more readers.

Damn.