Thursday, July 25, 2013

Dorky

Arissa is somewhat weird.

She watches television shows a lot. Only that she downloaded it instead of watching it on the black box, or a black monitor as how it is now – everybody has gone LCD and LED. She doesn’t watch the popular ones – Desperate Housewives, Glee, True Blood, Suits. She’s more on the New York based shows like Gossip Girl, Sex and the City, The Newsroom and reading New York Magazine online.

She treasures Anthony Bourdain and David Chang with great fondness.

She’s dull and somewhat colourful. She can be very reserved and very outspoken depending on her moods. When extremely nervous, she stutters or pronounced two words at the same time that it merged into a gibberish word. She can also be a smooth talker or worse, a very seductive sweet talker. She’s witty and sarcastic, also very emotional.

However, Naqi is hooked. He’s amused, enamoured and also tenderly curious of Arissa’s personality. She’s eccentric and has her own set of antiques. She can be very cold, dismissive with any issue simply by the expression on her face or the rolling of her eyes. Then again, she can also be gentle and considerate, thoughtful and genuinely concern.

Still, Naqi is attracted to her. He likes her face, her threaded brows, eyes and mascara-coated long lashes. He’s entertained when she puts on the lip balm, lipstick and lipgloss ceremoniously each time after they finished their meal. He enjoys looking at the pair of painted lips when he greets her, while she’s sipping her coffee and when they parted.

Naqi likes everything about Arissa when they spend time together. The smell of her shampoo, her flower-scented lotions and simply when he sometimes caught her breath that smells of coffee and mints. Arissa used to have her hair long but these days she has it bob only above her shoulders.

She wears braces and it is more about losing her weight rather than straightening her teeth. She’s just funny that way. As much as she whines about her weight, she still eats heartily. She loves the way sashimi melts in her mouth, loving her steaks medium to medium well. She enjoys poached eggs, anything potato-based and a lot of greens on her plate. 

There’s a lot to learn about Arissa. Naqi is in no rush and he’s taking his time getting to know her. At times he’s surprised with how a rollercoaster freak Arissa can be but he’s usually very happy with her – in Jason Mraz’s song, Arissa is a beautiful mess in his eyes.

Arissa loves a good sandwich. She also enjoys a good spread of lauk at any nasi campur stall. She doesn’t mind getting lost into a very good breakfast or spends the whole day having brunch. Arissa can eat through a buffet and will always have coffee at the end of it. Basically Arissa loves food and she loves to eat to the point she occasionally takes a hiatus.

Arissa is also enthusiastic about the ingredients. She’s not interested at all in the process of cooking but she loves the raw materials and preparing before the cooking. Arissa gets all excited going to the market be it dry but especially the wet market. She loves looking at the seafood, dead or alive. She observes the vegetables and herbs like it’s art, like they are visiting a museum.

Arissa also gets excited eating at the food stalls having a bowl of noodles or a regular plate of nasi campur – she usually tries the bergedil, the eggplant sambal and sampling the veges. She couldn’tsay no to a freshly fried chicken or a nicely grilled catfish. The aroma got her hooked like it’s crack.

It’s one of the things that Naqi doesn’t mind having Arissa with him. Although Arissa is at the very least interested to visit livestock farms, Naqi is secretly entertained at how she clings to him, how cute she looks in a pair of rubber boots and how petrified she can be with the big hooves. She whines and muttered to herself, and some point she keeps quite as in keeping her opinions to herself rather than displeasing Naqi.
This is just one of the moments that Naqi felt he has found a soulmate.

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