You know, I was all ready for one helluva great weekend.

I’ve been doing lots this week, partly to make up for lost time, partly cuz I feel so ALIVE right now and I want to make the most of it. Also, dear friends have left for home and soon I will probably do the same myself. So, before it all ends, let the good times roll!

Going to Berlin for the Love Parade this weekend was at the top of my list. I’ve haven’t traveled anywhere in the past two months, and being here in Europe, with some of the coolest places on earth imaginable at my fingertips, this is a unpardonable sin.

I could imagine it: dancing in the streets, getting drunk, colours splashed everywhere and LOVE, more LOVE than you can imagine or desire. Oh, yessss …

As far as I could tell, it was all systems go, even though, by yesterday morning, Blue and I haven’t really found anyone else to join us or even had the time to arrange any kind of transportation. I was in middle of a conversation with my university liaison, Roland, when I got a call from Blue.

He was gonna be trying to register for an exam for the rest of the day and really hadn’t the time. With all the stuff that has been happening lately, he suggested calling the Berlin trip off and just resting and relaxing for the weekend. I said sure and that was that.

Bummer.

When I was finally done by late noon, I headed over to Stusta for lunch with Manuel. The kid’s been studying like a racehorse for his finals. Major time out needed. We grabbed a blanket (a huge, dark green one Useless McGyver left us), found a nice spot in the Englischer Gartens and began to worship the Sun-god.

Manuel will kill me for telling you guys this, but he has a major problem with bees: He really doesn’t like them. In fact, he has such a heightened sense of radar, those damned things couldn’t get within a 50cm-radius of him without him jumping five feet into the air and screaming a hissy fit. (Okay, maybe I’m exagerrating just a tad …)

He gave up after an hour in the sun and headed back to his room to mutilate his books some more. I had a far less interesting time, just lying around in the midst of nature, my bare skin being kissed by golden heat, surrounded by sweet, young, naked things.

(Though there was that sketchy old couple, who should have covered themselves, being neither young nor sweet. The Old Geezer pranced about, talking to some cops in their patrol car and Mrs. Geezer played catch with a dog. Eww.)

When I felt I had been sufficiently roasted, I walked back to Stusta, rounding up Man and Monkey. I was completely starving (and as J-Dawg will no doubt tell you, bitching the roof down about it) but neither of them wanted an early dinner. As a compromise, Manuel stuffed me with some dense, sesame-ish Polish candy. Mmmrrmpph!

We ended up in our favourite witch’s tavern that night and had a sumptuous meal. (Of course, then, I just had to complain how full I was.) Before heading to an early bed, we watched Zoolander, a fashion documentary with sidenotes on Malaysian prime ministers, assassination conspiracies and them good ol’ sweatshops. Imagine my patriotic pride. (I laughed along with my evil, hedonistic, laissez-faire Westerner buddies as I could not have under past oppression, denying me my rights to take pleasure in MTV vapidity.)

Seriously though, while I have always been open-minded, being outside of Malaysia for nearly a year has at least the effect of a laxative on my natural uptightness. Like if Woody Allen found out one day he wasn’t Jewish. Come to think of it, isn’t it strange that most of my friends here in Germany are Americans and Italians?

Perhaps not. I know I had great fun if a quiet evening with two of them, two of my best friends, yesterday. We don’t do this enough. Just, as Cualdo the Mgt. said, just resting and relaxing.

One of things about getting out of this funk is that I want to be happy, to go right out there and keep searching for happiness. This, I fear, might be falling right back into the same trap I just crawled out of. I need to take time to be happy right NOW.

I tell myself, “Don’t complicate your life.”

(And I take a letter-opener and stab repeatedly the Author part of me that wants to stay in my room, in front of my flickering moniotr, and start writing a ten-volume epic about a bunch of elves that rhapsodise on why it is wonderful to be sad. Life can be simple, if you engage in a little self-mutilation once in awhile.)

You know, I think I am having that one helluva great weekend after all.

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Copyright © 2002 Kenny Mah Ying Fye.