Kulam Ikan Tetangga

Menjelang subuh di pertengahan tahun 2000, saat menunggu telepon dari pacar yang tinggal di tanah yang berbeda waktu 4 jam dari negeri ini, mendadak saya memikirkan tentang tradisi. Beberapa hari terakhir ini, pemikiran itu muncul kembali, seperti kapal selam dari dasar palung terdalam bawah sadar saya. Lahir dan besar sebagai orang Jawa dalam keluarga yang nampak liberal di pulau Jawa, saya tetap dikelilingi dan dibentuk dalam tradisi. Orang Jawa sangat menyukai tradisi. Segala macam upacara dan tata cara dalam hidup orang Jawa dilandasi berbagai simbol dan filosofi. Javanese are suckers for ceremonies and symbols , begitu kesimpulan saya. Ibu saya sebetulnya jenis orang yang tak terlalu gemar upacara dan simbol-simbolan, tetapi sebagai seorang yang dididik secara akademis untuk menjadi skeptis, ibu ternyata bisa menemukan jawaban dan alasan yang rasional untuk beberapa upacara tradisi yang berlaku dalam adat Jawa. Misalnya ketika dulu saya pertama kali menstruasi, ibu tetap memb...

I know something is being shown to me, discreetly, subtly, indirectly. I know this, but I cannot guess what it is yet, that something that is being shown to me. I know how it feels like. It felt like I've crossed a point where a loop is being completed. A perfect circle. Albeit small, but the loop is finished. Time to move on. Start another loop. It doesn't have to be big, everything started minuscule. Like atoms. I know what I need to feel now. I need to soar and surrounded with warmth. I have the warmth, all I need to do is let go of the sandbags, the baggages that are holding me back, and rise.

Rahasia Meede: Misteri Harta Karun VOC by E.S. Ito Mengandung spoiler. Kalau kamu gak suka spoiler, gak usah diteruskan. Jangan misuh-misuh belakangan. Resensi lengkap mungkin akan dibuat dan diunggah saat buku sudah rampung dibaca. Saat ini baru sampai halaman 235. Akan tetapi daripada tidak ada, berikut ini adalah berbagai coretan yang saya buat di halaman-halaman buku dengan menggunakan pensil. Halaman 87: Karakter Guru Uban ini terlalu jelas dibuat sombong dan angkuh, hitam putih. Sepertinya akan condong pada sesuatu yang hitam. Halaman 102: Cathleen lebih terdengar Amerika daripada Belanda, baik dari segi nama maupun gerak-gerik yang dideskripsikan. Halaman 121: Dari semua karakter sejauh ini hanya Batu yang terbentuk lebih utuh, alami dan manusiawi (dalam artian 'believable'). Halaman 125: (re: Cathleen) perempuan ini mahasiswi sejarah, spesialisasinya apa bisa dikesampingkan, kenapa dia harus digambarkan sedemikian butanya tentang Suharto? Halaman 129: Bab 13...

I was standing in a queue for Pak Min's Chicken Soup this evening when I saw this guy in front of me handed something over the counter. It was a tin container. He was going to bring the soup home. I can't remember when exactly was it the last time I brought a tin container from home to buy and bring home the food. Nowadays it's always plastic plastic plastic. Hot food, cold beverages, almost everything uses plastic. I have been trying to return to the forgotten habit of the era before Twitter, Facebook, heck even before Friendster and mIRC; going shopping carrying a shopping bag from home to reduce plastic bags. Which means the going shopping itself has to be carefully planned, so I can bring the shopping bag :D. Not a bad idea for times of crises like nowadays, when all prices goes sky rocketing and would never ever touched down anywhere. Now I'll just need to start bringing food containers when buying food out. By the way, in the blog where I took the photo of r...

We were going to the supermarket to stock his fridge with food yesterday. The traffic was brimming, in anticipation of the adzan at approximately a quarter to six, when the streets would suddenly be empty for a little while people are in a hurry to break their fasting. Waiting for the traffic light to turn green, I snuggled my face to his left shoulder. It smelled so good. "Which pile did you take this t-shirt from?" " What ?" "Did you take it from the laundry plastic bags or from your dresser?" " Dresser ." That was me. The stack of his clean t-shirts in his dresser, I did those for him. I made him smell good :)

Karena kepala sakit jadinya nggak bisa mikir pake bahasa Inggris ataupun Bahasa Indonesia yang baik dan benar. Maka dari itu, jika dalam jurnal kali ini terjadi pencampuran bahasa yang semena dan ketidak-konsistenan istilah, biarkanlah berlalu dari kesadaran. Amin. Semua dimulai agak pagi hari ini karena ada yang mengusik tidur dengan mengkitik-kitik telapak kaki dan mendorong-dorong betis (dengan cukup brutil) buat ngebangunin. Memang sih, memang, minta dianterin beli tiket, tapi sungguhlah upacara pembangunan itu agak barbar. Mata masih lengket karena baru bisa tidur jam empat menjelang adzan Shubuh. Singkat cerita, kecemasan bahwa tidak akan dapat tiket tidak terbukti karena setelah mengantri di belakang 12 orang, akhirnya tiket pulang pergi ke kota kelahiran sudah di tangan. HAHAHA! YA! AKULAH SI GADIS KOTA! Aku bukan gadis desa! eh yang nancep di ubun-ubunnya itu apa ya, kok digdaya sangat nampaknya... Selepas itu kami pergi ke supermarket untuk menumpuk bahan makanan karena...

I promised to write about the brown non-electric warmer, so I began with the sweet chocolate pup in mind, and ended up in an entirely different story altogether. Well, ... maybe not too far different. Who could resist this chocolate charm? :) When small, my sister had recurrent bouts of asthma and she's allergic to a lot of things. Animals with fur are strictly banned in our household. My grandparents had to let go a dozen of rabbits they kept at their house because my sister spent two earlier years of her life there. My grandparents also had a pet dog, or rather my mother's youngest brother had, but the dog was always kept at the back of the house and wasn't allowed to get inside. My youngest uncle always have a dog, one succeeding the other when the previous dog died, or in one case was stolen :( I don't recall of the dog being banished because of my sister's asthma. The last two dogs my uncle kept was Bonzo and its pup Deki. They were sold off by my grandm...